PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – A Trump University fraud victim, who wants out of the national settlement, told Local 10 News reporter Bob Norman that she wants to sue the president.
Years before Donald Trump became president of the United States, he was promoting his Trump University and making a lot of promises.
"We're going to have professors that are absolutely terrific," Trump said at the time. "I think the biggest step toward success is going to be signing up for Trump University."
"At the time, his credibility, in my mind, was up there," Fort Lauderdale attorney Sherri Simpson said. "I knew of him as a real estate investor who was a multimillionaire."
Simpson said she took the bait and, as thousands of former Trump Univeristy students and the New York Attorney General’s Office have said, it was a total fraud.
"Trump U wasn't a university," Simpson said. "It didn't provide any of the information that was promised. It was disgusting to solicit funds from the elderly, to ask people to utilize credit cards to pay him, not to buy property, but to pay him for the privilege of learning nothing."
Simpson was one of 6,000 victims who settled with Trump for $25 million. She's expected to get back about $15,000 of the $19,000 she lost, but she wants to turn down the money so she can sue the sitting president individually.
"I want to take him to trial," Simpson said. "If he doesn't want to admit liability in a settlement -- no admission to guilt -- then I want to take him to trial and prove liability."
"You want an apology from Donald Trump?" Norman asked.
"I want an apology from Donald Trump," Simpson said.
"Have you ever heard of Donald Trump apologizing for anything he's done?" Norman asked.
"No. I would be the first," Simpson said.
Simpson's lawyer argued in federal court Thursday to allow Simpson to opt out of the settlement.
"I see a man who made promises to me and didn't keep them try to do the same thing to the country," Simpson said.
The federal court hearing is expected to wrap up later in the day in San Diego.