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TRUMP JR. TELLS COURT ARTIST ‘MAKE ME LOOK SEXY,’ POINTS TO FAKE SBF SKETCH

By Timothy Bella
November 3, 2023 at 11:21 a.m. EDT

Donald Trump Jr. is questioned by Colleen Faherty, a lawyer for the attorney
general's office, during the Trump Organization civil fraud trial in New York
State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Thursday in this courtroom sketch. (Jane
Rosenberg/Reuters)

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As former president Donald Trump’s sons took the stand in the civil fraud trial
against their family business, Donald Trump Jr. made a four-word request to the
sketch artist capturing his image and likeness in the courtroom.

Keeping up with politics is easy with The 5-Minute Fix Newsletter, in your inbox
weekdays.ArrowRight

“Make me look sexy,” he said.

After Trump Jr. finished his Thursday testimony on the financial statements at
the heart of the $250 million lawsuit, he approached courtroom sketch artist
Jane Rosenberg and asked whether she could draw him in an overly flattering way.
Rosenberg was on assignment for Reuters, the first to report on the exchange.

Trump Jr. had an example of what he should look like — and it came from another
Manhattan courtroom. Rosenberg said he pulled out his phone and showed her the
fake courtroom sketch of Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX co-founder who was faces
decades in prison after he was convicted of fraud, conspiracy and money
laundering on Thursday.

Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. both testified on Nov. 2 that they had no
involvement with documents that a judge has ruled were fraudulently manipulated.
(Video: Reuters, Photo: John Taggar for The Washington Post/Reuters)

“He said, ‘Did you see the one they made of Sam Bankman-Fried? It made him look
like a superstar,’ ” she recounted to Insider. Rosenberg told Reuters she
quickly shot down the AI-generated sketch of Bankman-Fried — depicting him as
having spiky hair and a firm jaw instead of his usual disheveled self — as being
fake.

Story continues below advertisement

“It doesn’t look anything like him, doesn’t look anything like Sam
Bankman-Fried,” she said, “ … and there’s no one in the courtroom drawing that.”

Rosenberg, a veteran courtroom artist who has drawn sketches of everyone from
Tom Brady to Harvey Weinstein, depicted Bankman-Fried throughout his trial as
having big ears, a protruding forehead and bulging eyes.

Rosenberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday.
Trump Jr. confirmed on X that he asked the artist to make him look good in his
courtroom sketch.

“True story,” he wrote, sharing a side-by-side comparison of the fake courtroom
sketch and a real photo of Bankman-Fried. “Seems like a reasonable ask.”

Trump Jr.'s sketch request comes as attorneys for New York Attorney General
Letitia James (D) have accused the former president, his sons and their
eponymous company of inflating the financial statements to secure better terms.
The trial is examining the alleged long-standing practice by the Trump
Organization and its executives that was done to negotiate better interest rates
from lenders and to cut down on insurance policy costs.

Trump sons testify during New York civil fraud trial against their family
business

As he was questioned by Colleen Faherty, a member of James’s trial team, Trump
Jr. testified that he was not involved in the accounting that went into the
financial statements, describing that as the work of the company’s accountants.

Subscribe to The Trump Trials, our weekly newsletter on Donald Trump's four
criminal cases

The former president’s namesake mentioned to Rosenberg how he wanted a
flattering sketch like Bankman-Fried’s hours before the FTX co-founder was
convicted. The jury’s decision was reached after less than five hours of
deliberation, with Bankman-Fried being found guilty on two counts of wire fraud,
four counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit
money laundering. The attorney for Bankman-Fried, who is accused of being one of
the largest financial fraudsters in history after victims suffered nearly $10
billion in losses, suggested that his client will appeal the conviction.
Bankman-Fried’s sentencing is scheduled for March 28, 2024.

Bankman-Fried convicted on all charges after weeks-long criminal trial

Rosenberg is among the most well-known courtroom sketch artists in America. In
the decades after she got her start drawing prostitutes in New York’s night
court, Rosenberg has captured the likes of John Gotti, Woody Allen and Martha
Stewart while they were on trial. Rosenberg faced some criticism a few years ago
for her depiction of “ugly Tom Brady” during a Deflategate hearing in 2015. Her
rendering of the New England Patriots quarterback made Brady, known for his
handsome features, look as if he had gone through a gruesome transformation. The
sketch caused a firestorm of internet memes and a deluge of nasty emails from
Patriots fans.

Rosenberg is also no stranger to sketching a member of the Trump family in
court. When the former president was arraigned in April on 34 counts stemming
from 2016 hush money payments, Rosenberg drew sketches showing Trump’s anger
after the first criminal charges were handed down to any former U.S. president.
The sketch went viral and graced the cover of the New Yorker.

In the days before Bankman-Fried’s conviction, a fake courtroom sketch of him
spread online that depicted him to be an Adonis, or at least an underwear model.
The internet had fun over the AI-generated rendering.

Story continues below advertisement

“Why does courtroom sketch SBF look like he spends his time playing quarterback
& breaking hearts when he’s not stealing customer funds?” one critic asked on X
this week.

But the fake sketch of Bankman-Fried rankled Rosenberg, who maintained to the
Independent that the AI-generated image “doesn’t look anything like him.”
Rosenberg acknowledged to the British outlet that the courtroom sketch artists
said the AI image looked more like Matthew Perry, the “Friends” star who
recently died, than Bankman-Fried.

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“It’s not Bankman-Fried, it’s not his nose, it’s not his face, it’s not
anything,” she said. “You know that AI doesn’t work in courtroom art.” She
added, “It’s so silly, this whole world of Twitter. So we’re talking about
nothing.”

Rosenberg’s courtroom depictions of Bankman-Fried changed during the course of
the month-long trial, with some comparing his droopy and unsettling features to
that of “The Scream,” the 1893 composition by Edvard Munch that symbolizes the
anxiety of the human condition.

Like any of her other sketches, including Trump Jr., Rosenberg told the
Independent that her process for drawing the real sketch of Bankman-Fried was
simple, and that it wasn’t her job to analyze whether defendants were tragic
figures.

“I just look at him and draw what I see,” she said.

Shayna Jacobs, Mark Berman, Eli Tan and Tory Newmyer contributed to this report.

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1009 Comments
Trump NY fraud trial
HAND CURATED
* 4 things we learned from Trump’s testimony in the New York fraud trial
November 6, 2023

4 things we learned from Trump’s testimony in the New York fraud trial
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* Testifying in fraud case, Trump clashes with judge and draws reprimands
November 6, 2023

Testifying in fraud case, Trump clashes with judge and draws reprimands
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* Grievances, insults, tangents: Trump brings his 2024 campaign into the
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Grievances, insults, tangents: Trump brings his 2024 campaign into the
courtroom
November 6, 2023

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