Donald Trump said he’ll likely be forced to sell properties to cover a $454 million verdict against him in New York state’s civil fraud case if the judgment isn’t put on hold, instead offering to post a $100 million bond backed by some of his assets while he appeals.
Trump’s lawyers appeared in a Manhattan court on Wednesday after filing an emergency request to temporarily delay enforcement of the “unprecedented and unconstitutional” judgment. Trump would then use the delay to seek a longer lasting hold on the verdict while he appeals to overturn it altogether.
According to the court filing, Trump would secure his proposed $100 million bond with properties including his 40 Wall Street skyscraper, his Seven Springs estate outside New York City, Trump National Golf Club and Trump Park Avenue, among others.
The filing was the first indication by Trump that he doesn’t have enough cash to cover the verdict or post a bond equal to at least 110% of the judgment to keep it on hold during the appeal. Trump also owes $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll after he lost a defamation suit last month, creating a major cash crunch as Trump campaigns to return to the White House in the November election.
“In the absence of a stay on the terms herein outlined, properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances, and there would be no way to recover any property sold following a successful appeal and no means to recover the resulting financial losses,” Trump’s lawyers said in an appeals court filing.
State appeals court judge Anil Singh is expected to issue a ruling soon on Trump’s request, which drew opposition from New York Attorney General Letitia James. She argued that granting a temporary delay for Trump and his co-defendants in the case would raise the risk he wouldn’t pay what he owes, even if he loses the appeal.
“There is no merit to defendants’ contention that a full bond or deposit is unnecessary because they are willing to post a partial undertaking of less than a quarter of the judgment amount,” the attorney general’s office wrote in a letter to the court. “Defendants all but concede Mr. Trump has insufficient liquid assets to satisfy the judgment; defendants would need ‘to raise capital’ to do so.”
“These are precisely the circumstances for which a full bond or deposit is necessary,” the state added.
The Feb. 16 verdict by Justice Arthur Engoron found Trump inflated the value of his assets by billions of dollars a year for more than a decade to get better terms on loans, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in “illegal profit.” The judge ordered Trump to pay a $355 million fine plus $99 million in pre-trial interest.
Engoron also barred Trump and his company from seeking loans for several years from any New York-chartered banks, which the former president claims further hobbles his effort to get a bond.
“The exorbitant and punitive amount of the judgment coupled with an unlawful and unconstitutional blanket prohibition on lending transactions would make it impossible to secure and post a complete bond,” Trump’s lawyers said. They added that enforcing the verdict would result in “needless, irreparable injury.”
For every day he doesn’t pay, Trump said he’s facing $115,000 in accrued interest on the judgment, which is “beyond any permissible or constitutional scope of disgorgement.”
There is precedent for Trump winning an emergency request before a single appeals court judge. The former president was able to halt the fines and a gag order Engoron imposed in October during the trial, though that decision was reversed later by the full panel of appellate court judges. In September when Engoron ordered the dissolution of Trump’s business licenses, a single appellate judge granted Trump’s emergency request.
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