Ivana Trump, the first wife of former US President Donald Trump, died from trauma caused by an accidental fall, the New York Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) announced on Friday. ).
The woman was found dead on Thursday, aged 73, on the stairs inside her New York apartment. “The medical examiner determined that the cause of death was a blunt impact wound to her torso,” the OCME said in a statement.
Ivana and Donald were married in 1977 and had three children: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. In the 1980s, women played an important role in building the family business and the former president’s image. She worked alongside her husband on the development of the Trump Tower building in New York and helped oversee the construction of the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. They divorced in 1992.
Donald Trump announced the death on the Truth Social platform and claimed that Ivana was a survivor for having “fled from communism and embraced the United States”. The woman was born and raised under the communist regime of former Czechoslovakia and later moved to the US where she worked as a model, writer and businesswoman.
Out of respect for the mourning, the American Justice postponed the testimony of the former American president in the investigation into alleged fraud in the family business. The Republican and his eldest sons, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, were to speak under oath this Friday.
“This is a temporary delay and depositions will be rescheduled as soon as possible,” a spokeswoman for the New York attorney general’s office, Letitia James, responsible for the investigation, told AFP.
James investigates whether Trump overestimated the value of real estate properties when applying for bank loans, while declaring them for lower amounts to tax authorities to pay less tax. The former president and his family deny wrongdoing.
