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Shirtless photos that appeared in a newsletter curated by Judge Arthur Engoron have sparked fresh criticism among supporters of former President Donald Trump. Supporters of the former president are questioning why shirtless photos, allegedly belonging to New York judge presiding over Trump's civil fraud trial, feature in his high school alumni newsletter.
Archived newsletters from the Wheatley School Alumni Association show photos of what is believed to be Engoron's torso dated 2020 and 2021. Both newsletters are curated by the 74-year-old judge, who graduated from the high school in Old Westbury, New York, in 1967. The newsletter includes what appears to be a photo of him with the closing line: "Please send me your autobiography before someone else sends me your obituary."
The photos were criticized for being progress photos of Engoron's body although Newsweek hasn't independently confirmed this. One newsletter captioned the images as "before and after," while the other included a selfie from October 2020 captioned a "bonus torso photo."
Newsweek reached out to the Wheatley School Alumni Association and Engoron via email and phone for comment.
Sharing screenshots of the newsletter and full-body pictures of Engoron at a gym, the Trump-affiliated group Marco Polo wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter: "The judge who is harassing DJT in NYC takes naked selfies in the mirror at the gym & then posts them to the high school alumni newsletter he maintains." The self-described "opposition research group" is headed by former Trump White House aide Garrett Ziegler.
"Engoron included a 'BonusTorsoPhoto' but luckily spared his readers the bottom half," the group said on Monday.
Conservative commentator and Trump supporter Collin Rugg criticized Engoron over the resurfacing of the newsletters, tweeting, "The judge presiding over Trump's NYC trial appears to have a peculiar hobby of posting half-naked photos of himself on a high school alumni newsletter he controls."
"This man is not well," Rugg said.
"I do not want to see Judge Engoron's torso," another MAGA supporter wrote.
Engoron has been the subject of criticism from both Trump supporters and the former president himself. Engoron and Trump sparred in the courtroom Monday as Trump took the witness stand in the $250 million civil fraud suit accusing him, his two eldest sons, and the Trump Organization of inflating their assets.
Ahead of his testimony, Trump blasted Engoron on Truth Social, calling him "a really Biased, Nasty, Club controlled, but often overturned, Judge."
During Trump's testimony, Engoron repeatedly tried to rein in Trump, urging the former president to answer the questions and even calling on Trump's lawyers at one point to "control him if you can."
On the stand, the former president criticized the judge for an earlier ruling that found Trump liable for "persistent and repeated" fraud, saying, "He called me a fraud and he didn't know anything about me."
"The fraud is on the court, not on me," Trump said in court.
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About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more