Like father, like son: Revisiting Fred Trump’s arrests

The family business is real estate, but the Trump family has also made it a habit to find trouble with the law.

This week, Donald Trump was indicted for his alleged role in a hush money payment for porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016 paid prior to election, becoming the first former U.S. president charged with a crime. He’s not the first Trump patriarch to be arrested, though, the Washington Post pointed out.

Donald’s father, Fred, was arrested twice during his lifetime. One of his arrests came as the result of a Ku Klux Klan rally, while the other was more real-estate-centric.

In 1927, Fred was arrested at a Queens KKK rally that turned violent. A newspaper at the time said the 21-year-old was arrested for “refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so.” He was one of seven arrested following the 1,000-person-strong rally.

While Fred’s role in the brouhaha was unclear, Donald’s opinion has been firm: fake news. He said after the arrest was uncovered in 2016 that his father “was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged.”

Forty-nine years later, Fred would find himself under arrest again. This time, he was arrested in Prince George’s County, Maryland, after failing to comply with citations for housing code violations filed months earlier.

Officials surprised the Trump scion with arrest warrants at his 504-unit complex after he flew down from New York, seemingly to discuss the issues. Violations discovered during a routine inspection included broken windows, defective rain gutters and the failure to install fire extinguishers. 

The chief of inspection for the county said Trump was “a little upset, to put it mildly” — sounds like another member of the Trump family upon his own indictment. Fred was released on $1,000 bond and quickly made his way back to New York.

Outside of his father’s legal dealings, Donald Trump is in good company in terms of real estate figures who have faced criminal charges over the years.

— Holden Walter-Warner