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Former President Donald Trump and several co-defendants in a New York civil fraud case do not need to come up with $464 million to block New York Attorney General Letitia James from foreclosing their assets, an appeals court ruled Monday. He was sentenced and bail was set at $175 million. assets.
Pressure on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to come up with cash or find a bonding company to cover a roughly $454 million judgment facing Trump and several entities. has increased over the past month.
Judge Arthur F. Engoron handed down the judgment, which includes interest, concluding that Mr. Trump fraudulently inflated the value of his assets over several years to obtain more favorable loan and insurance terms. President Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr. also received judgments totaling more than $9 million, and former Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg was ordered to pay more than $1 million.
According to Monday’s court filing, the bond was provided by Knight Specialty Insurance Company, which has its principal place of business in Los Angeles, but did not comply with New York state requirements to guarantee payment of the bond. is met.
The aid came just in time for the former president: Against the March 25 deadline to post bond or bail to stop Mr. James, the New York Court of Appeals gave him and his co-defendants an additional 10 days to pay just $175. The court ruled that he would be given a one-day grace period. Million people to protect themselves from collection. The shield will last until Trump’s appeals are exhausted.
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President Trump held a celebration in the hours after the verdict, calling the trial court’s decision on what he was owed “ridiculous and outrageous.” James emphasized that the full text of the ruling still stands, adding that Trump “remains held accountable for his incredible misconduct.”
Trump’s lawyer Alina Haba said in a statement Monday that the president is posting the bond as “promised.”
“He looks forward to vindicating his rights on appeal and overturning this unjust sentence,” Haba said. The New York State Attorney General’s Office declined to comment.
The “realistically impossible” became possible
The aid comes as President Trump, his corporate entities and his two sons argued in a New York appellate court on March 18 that it would be “practically impossible” to obtain a $464 million bond to cover the judgment. This was realized in response to the statement. They said in a filing that they visited 30 bond companies, but none were willing to cover a bond of this size without collateral in the form of cash or cash equivalents.
“Obtaining such cash through a ‘fire sale’ of real estate holdings would inevitably result in large and irrecoverable losses,” they wrote in the appeals court. They sought an order preventing James from collecting money pending appeal without posting bail.
James’ office has denied some of Trump’s claims, arguing that Trump may have tried to split the $464 million bond into smaller pieces with different bond companies to spread the risk. He questioned the credibility of statements made by attorneys about the difficulties in obtaining bond.
President Trump had previously urgently asked the appeals court to post only the $100 million appeal bond and block James from collecting it. This was quickly rejected by individual appellate judges in a late February order. But a March 25 decision to lower that figure to $175 million was made by that judge and four others. The judges did not explain their decision.
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