Trump fraud judgment finalized
NEW YORK — The devastating judgment handed down last week against Donald Trump in his fraud case was finalized Friday — coming out to more than $454 million with interest — a day after New York Attorney General Letitia James said she’d seize prized jewels in his real estate portfolio if he can’t afford to pay.
The clerk in Manhattan Supreme Court officially filed Justice Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 ruling against Trump and his former top executives shortly after 3 p.m., tallying up the total at nearly half a billion dollars with interest and counting. Trump’s tab is slated to increase by more than $87,500 daily until it is resolved.
Trump has vowed to appeal the ruling but can’t do so without putting up the cash. The GOP front-runner is expected to have around 30 days to appeal and post the money in a court-controlled account once he’s officially been served with Friday’s filing, 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 number.
Engoron denied a request from a lawyer for Trump’s side, Cliff Robert, on Thursday 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 Thursday, James said she would go after Trump’s properties if it transpires he can’t 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 and his offspring.
Evidence during the trial
showed Trump and his execs routinely exaggerated the value of properties like Trump Tower, 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 around $355 million — comprising illgotten interest on several deals secured with bogus numbers and sale profits from assets and lease agreements secured by lies — and more than $99 million in interest and counting. The judge also barred him from heading an Empire State business for three years and placed other restrictions on his family real estate empire, including a two-tiered monitoring system.
Trump’s sons were hit with around $4 million in penalties pre-interest and a two-year ban on running a New York business.
The 79-year-old Weisselberg, who served jail time in a separate tax fraud case involving his Trump Organization work, was ordered to pay back half of his $2 million severance, a golden parachute that the judge found was illicitly secured to ensure his loyalty to Trump and not law enforcement. The loyal longtime finance chief, first hired by Fred Trump as a bookkeeper in the 1970s, was barred from handling a New York company’s finances for the rest of his life, along with Mcconney.
The civil fraud case isn’t the only one denting his bottom line. A jury decided he owed writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million on Jan. 26 for defaming her when he was president, adding to $5 million a previous jury decided Trump owed for sexually assaulting her in the 1990s and defaming her after he was president. Trump is appealing both outcomes.