Trump wins last-minute reprieve as judge cuts fraud bond to $175m
Ten-day deadline to pay up in civil case as date set for hush-money trial
A NEW York appeals court has agreed to hold off collection of former president Donald Trump’s $454m civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175m within 10 days.
If he does, it will stop the clock on collection and prevent the state from seizing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s assets while he appeals.
The appeals court also reversed other aspects of a trial judge’s ruling that had barred Trump and sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr from serving in corporate leadership for several years.
In all, the order was a significant victory for the ex-president as he defends the real estate empire that vaulted him into public life.
The development came just before New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, was expected to initiate efforts to collect the judgment.
Mr Trump, who was attending a separate hearing in his criminal hush money case in New York, posted on his Truth Social platform that he would post a bond, securities or cash to cover the $175m (£138.5m) sum.
“This also shows how ridiculous and outrageous” trial Judge Arthur Engoron’s judgment was, Mr Trump wrote.
Ms James’ office, meanwhile, noted that the judgment still stands, while collection is paused.
“Donald Trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud. The court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his organisation,” the office said in a statement.
Mr Trump’s lawyers had pleaded for a state appeals court to halt collection, claiming it was “a practical impossibility” to get an underwriter to sign off on a bond for such a large sum, which grows by the day because of interest.
The Trump attorneys had earlier proposed a $100m bond, but an appellate judge had said no late last month.
The ruling was issued by the state’s intermediate appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court, where Mr Trump is fighting to overturn a judge’s February 16 finding that he lied about his wealth as he built the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.
After Ms James won the judgment, she did not seek to enforce it during a legal time-out for Mr Trump to ask the appeals court for a reprieve from paying up.
That period ended yesterday, though Ms James could have decided to allow Mr Trump more time.
Meanwhile, a New York judge has scheduled an April 15 trial date in Mr Trump’s hush money case.
Judge Juan M Merchan made the ruling after earlier scolding the former president’s lawyers as he weighed when to reschedule the trial following a last-minute document dump caused a postponement of the original date.
Mr Merchan had bristled at what he suggested were baseless defence claims of “prosecutorial misconduct”, appearing unpersuaded by the Trump team’s arguments that prosecutors had until recently concealed tens of thousands of pages of records from a previous federal investigation.
The hush money case, filed last year by prosecutors in Manhattan, has taken on added importance given that it is the only one of the prosecutions against Mr Trump that appears likely for trial in the coming months.
The simmering documents dispute — arising from a tranche of records relating to a 2018 federal investigation into the same issues — is significant to the extent it results in a meaningful delay to the trial, which centres on years-old allegations that Mr Trump arranged a payment to a porn actor during his 2016 presidential campaign to suppress claims of an extramarital affair.