Trump lawyers post $92M bond to cover suit award

NEW YORK — Donald Trump has secured a $91.6 million bond sufficient to cover the money he owes to writer E. Jean Carroll in a defamation lawsuit while he appeals the jury’s verdict, the former president’s lawyer told a court Friday.

Attorney Alina Habba filed papers with the New York judge to show that Trump had secured the bond from the Federal Insurance Co., a unit of the insurance giant Chubb. The bond would cover the $83.3 million judgment in the lawsuit, plus interest.

Habba simultaneously filed a notice showing that Trump is appealing the verdict. The posting of the bond was a necessary step to delay payment of the award until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals can rule on Trump’s legal challenge.

The filings came a day after Judge Lewis Kaplan refused to delay a Monday deadline for posting a bond to ensure that Carroll, 80, can collect the judgment if it remains intact after appeals. Trump faces financial pressure to set aside money to cover the judgment in the Carroll case and a bigger one in a lawsuit in which he was found liable for lying about his wealth in financial statements given to banks.

A New York judge recently refused to halt collection of a $454 million civil fraud penalty while Trump appeals. He has until March 25 to either pay up or secure a bond covering the full amount. In the meantime, interest on the judgment continues to mount, adding roughly $112,000 each day. Trump’s lawyers warned that he might need to sell some properties to cover the penalty.

A civil jury in New York found last May that Trump had sexually abused Carroll in 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury department store in Manhattan.

That jury awarded $5 million to Carroll to compensate her for the alleged sexual assault and for damage to her reputation when Trump said publicly that she made up the attack to help sell a memoir.