Trump University's Shady Faculty - The Daily Beast - 0 views
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Photo Illustration by The Daily Beastwritten by
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According to seminar transcripts filed in one class-action lawsuit against Trump University and reviewed by The Daily Beast, Harris told students that at 19, he found himself homeless and was forced to seek shelter in the grimy New York City subway. But his life changed, he said, when he met a “nice gentleman” who taught him about the real estate business.
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Despite becoming the top instructor at an institution that billed itself as a university, he didn’t have a background in education or even, according to his story, a college degree.
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When he was hired in 2008, he was already a convicted felon—for aggravated assault, recent depositions in the Trump University case reveal. And according to 2011 divorce filings in Gwinnett County, Georgia, Harris threatened to kill his ex-wife and tried to have her Range Rover repossessed the day after she filed for a restraining order.
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The school, which has been defunct since 2011, is currently the subject of two class-action lawsuits in California and a $40 million suit brought by Eric Schneiderman, the Attorney General from New York.
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Trump University began in earnest on May 23, 2005, a for-profit venture with a website, TrumpUniversity.com, and a collection of courses—on entrepreneurship, real estate, and marketing—available on CD-ROM for $300 a pop.
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From the outset, Trump University’s roster of brainy professors was a selling point. In a promotional video
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Sonny Low, who paid $25,000 for a Trump mentorship in 2010, reported that Nowlin didn’t even “appear knowledgeable” about real estate or investing, according to one class-action lawsuit against Trump University.
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Attendees were required to sign a waiver promising not to sue the company if they later faced legal troubles, the Enquirer reported.
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Students started with a $1,495 three-day seminar, before some instructors, according to court papers, goaded them into buying mentorship packages totaling up to $34,995.
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The lawsuits against Trump University claim some pupils, encouraged to increase their credit limits and to max out their credit cards, paid twice as much.
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Trump decided to go in another direction, according to Schank. There would be no more online courses, no more lectures from ivy league professors, no more books—just seminars, with speakers like Harris
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On social media, he posed for photos in a plush, white bathrobe on a manicured lawn, flanked by a shiny silver Hummer and Mercedes-Benz. He told students they could live like him, too, and vowed to teach them to earn $25,000 a month, according to court filings.
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At some point, Harris was also employed by Armando Montelongo Seminars, a venture similar to Trump University and also facing lawsuits from disgruntled students who claim they were scammed.