Whether or not Donald Trump is elected president in November, he still has three lawsuits to face involving his for-profit business seminar, Trump University.
A Manhasset resident, Robert Guillo, 77, is active in two of the cases, which claim that students were duped out of their money for classes that promised Trump’s business secrets.
Guillo said he paid $34,995 in 2009 for seminars that didn’t amount to much more than guest speakers talking about their success and a certificate of accomplishment.
“I thought it was a legitimate university that was started by Donald Trump to give us little guys like me the benefit of his experiences and make us wealthy like he was,” Guillo said in an interview.
He is listed as a witness for one of two class-action lawsuits in California and a case against Trump brought by New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in 2013. Guillo plans to testify in both cases, he said.
The California class-action suit, Low v. Trump University, says in the initial plaintiff complaint that the seminars delivered empty promises, and the primary lesson Trump University teaches its students is how to spend more money by buying more Trump seminars.
Students were promised a complete real estate education, a one-year apprenticeship and one-on-one mentorship, none of which were delivered, the complainants said.
The suit is scheduled for a jury trial on Nov. 28 in the U.S. District Court in California’s Southern District.
Schneiderman has publicly called Trump University fraudulent and said the businessman pocketed an estimated $5 million from the venture.
“In New York we have laws against business fraud, we have laws against consumer fraud, we have a law against running an illegal unlicensed university,” he said in a “Good Morning America’’ interview in June. “This never was a university. The fraud started with the name of the organization.”
Trump asked that the case be dismissed, but in April an appellate court determined that it could proceed, a spokesman for Schneiderman’s office said. The next court date will likely be scheduled for early 2017, he said.
So far Trump has defended the for-profit university by saying 98 percent of his students rated their experience positively in surveys they filled out after completing the course. Over five years, 100,000 paying students turned in surveys showing “overwhelming satisfaction” with the seminar, Trump said in a statement.
“Former student Bob Giullo, who has been critical of Trump University in numerous interviews and negative advertisements from my political opponents, also expressed his satisfaction, rating Trump University’s programs ‘excellent’ in every category,” Trump said in a written statement that misspelled Guillo’s name. “When asked how Trump University could improve its programs, Mr. Giullo simply asked that students be provided ‘more comfortable chairs.’”
Guillo compared the survey to an online restaurant questionnaire that promises a free meal for completing it. “They’d tell you to give them a favorable rating so you’d get your certificate and keep getting invited back for seminars,” he said.
