Fraud judgment against Don finalized at $454M
The finalized judgment against Donald Trump in his civil fraud case was officially filed Friday. The former president owes New York state more than $454 million for committing large-scale business fraud and will wake up $112,000 deeper in debt every day until he settles up.
The county clerk filed Judge Arthur Engoron’s devastating Feb. 16 ruling against the former president and his top executives in Manhattan Supreme Court shortly after 3 p.m. Friday, which tallied the total amount owed at $464.6 million with 9% annual interest. That sum includes penalties against Trump’s sons and former finance chief.
Trump has vowed to appeal Engoron’s ruling but can’t do so without first putting up the cash. Once he’s officially been served with the paperwork, the GOP front-runner is expected to have around 30 days to appeal and post bond or cash in a court-controlled account, a court official told the Daily News, which would put the consequences of Engoron’s judgment on ice and keep the sheriff at bay as Trump fights to get it tossed.
Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment on the finalized debt. His attorney and spokeswoman Alina Habba told Fox News earlier this week that he was prepared to post “the full amount and some” and will appeal.
Engoron denied a request from a lawyer for Trump’s side, Cliff Robert, earlier this week seeking a 30-day pause in the judgment being enforced given its “magnitude,” telling Robert in an email he had “failed to explain, much less justify, any basis” to halt it.
“I am confident that the Appellate Division will protect your appellate rights,” Engoron wrote.
In an interview with ABC News Tuesday, state Attorney General Letitia James said she’d seize prized jewels in Trump’s real estate portfolio if he can’t afford to pay his debt to New York.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James said in the interview.
“And yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day,” added James, whose downtown office is just across the street from Trump’s skyscraper in the Financial District.
Engoron found Trump; his sons, Eric and Don Jr., and former top executives at the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney, liable for intentionally committing fraud in New York’s real estate market for years after hearing from 40 witnesses over nearly three months, including the former president, his adult sons and daughter Ivanka Trump.
Evidence during the trial showed Trump and his execs habitually exaggerated the value of properties like Trump Tower (photo), Mar-a-Lago and his Wall Street skyscraper for at least a decade, including his time in the White House, sometimes ballooning Trump’s net worth by billions to secure better loan deals.
Engoron ordered Trump and entities he owns and controls to pay back ill-gotten interest on various deals secured with bogus numbers and sale profits from assets and a lease agreement based on lies. The judge also barred him from heading a business in the state for three years and placed other restrictions on his family real estate empire, including a two-tiered monitoring system.
Trump’s sons each owe nearly $4.7 million for their cut of the 2022 sale of the Old Post Office hotel in Washington, D.C., and are barred from running a New York business for two years, Friday’s filing details.
Engoron ordered 79-year-old Weisselberg, who served jail time in a separate tax fraud case involving his Trump Organization work, to pay back half of his $2 million severance, a golden parachute that the judge found was illicitly secured to ensure his fealty to Trump. With interest, the retired CFO owes $1.1 million, the new filing shows. The longtime finance chief, first hired by Trump’s father Fred Trump as a bookkeeper in the 1970s, is permanently barred from handling a New York company’s finances, along with McConney.
Trump has claimed his self-named properties worldwide value his bottom line in the billions. In one of his depositions with the AG, he said he had about $400 million in cash, less than the amount he owes New York.
The civil case isn’t the only one denting his bank balance. In January, a jury decided he owed writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her while he was president, adding to $5 million a previous jury decided Trump owed her for sexually assaulting her in the 1990s and defaming her after he was president. Trump is appealing both outcomes.
In addition to his lawsuit battles, the 77-year-old Trump has pleaded not guilty to 91 felonies stemming from his alleged efforts to interfere with the results of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and his alleged mishandling of classified documents from the White House. His first criminal trial is slated to start on March 25 in Manhattan in the Stormy Daniels hush money case.
Trump has decried all of his cases as part of a Democrat-led “witch hunt.”