US Judgment in Trump Civil Fraud Case Officially Entered at $464 Million
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – A clerk in New York has officially entered a more than $464 million fraud judgment against former US president Donald Trump and top executives at his company — an amount that will grow by over $114,000 a day until it's paid.
The action starts the clock on the amount of time Trump has to file an appeal and to post a bond for the award. If he does not do so, New York Attorney General Letitia James' office will be able to begin collection proceedings against Trump and his co-defendants in the civil fraud case.
The vast majority of the $464,576,230.62 judgment — $454,156,783.05 of it, to be exact — is against Trump and his companies. The interest on the judgment against Trump will increase at a daily rate of $111,983.86 until it's paid off, according to the AG's office.
The rest of the judgment is against his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who've been running the Trump Organization since 2017, and former top executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney.
The amount includes the prejudgment interest that's accrued on the more than $350 million award Judge Arthur Engoron handed down last week.
Trump's lawyers had sought to delay the judgment from being entered, presumably to allow them more time to line up financing for the bond, but Engoron rejected that request Thursday.
“You have failed to explain, much less justify, any basis for a stay,” Engoron told Trump attorney Clifford S. Robert in an email before he signed the judgment. The judgment became official Friday after it was entered in by the clerk.
Trump attorney Alina Habba told Fox News on Monday that "we will be prepared" to post the bond amount.
The bond will likely be very costly. While courts have discretion in setting exactly how much is required for a bond, New York courts typically require up to 120% of the judgment, including all pre-judgment interest. That means he could have to post a bond for well over $500 million.
If Trump posts the required bond, it is unclear whether the identity of the person or company paying will be public information, a source in the AG’s office told NBC News.
In a ruling last week following a months-long trial, Engoron found Trump and his top executives had intentionally engaged in a massive and long-running scheme to improperly inflate his assets in financial statements so he could take advantage of favorable loan and insurances rates he wasn't actually entitled to. The judge ordered him to pay what he found were the "ill-gotten gains" from his years-long fraud and also barred Trump “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years,” including his namesake company.
Trump maintained he hadn't done anything wrong and the case was a part of a giant Democratic conspiracy designed to take him down.
Engoron cited the lack of remorse from Trump and his executives in his ruling, saying their “complete lack of contrition and remorse borders on pathological."
"They are accused only of inflating asset values to make more money. The documents prove this over and over again. This is a venial sin, not a mortal sin," Engoron wrote. "Defendants did not commit murder or arson. They did not rob a bank at gunpoint. Donald Trump is not Bernard Madoff. Yet, defendants are incapable of admitting the error of their ways.”
He found their "refusal to admit error — indeed, to continue it, according to the Independent Monitor — constrains this Court to conclude that they will engage in it going forward unless judicially restrained.”
Last month, Trump was hit last month with an $83.3 million verdict in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against him. The judgment in that case was entered on Feb. 8. Trump has said he plans to appeal that verdict as well, which would also require posting a bond in excess of that amount.
In a court filing Friday, Trump's attorneys asked the judge who presided over that case to extend the time he has to post a bond until 30 days after his post-trial motions seeking to reduce the size of the verdict are decided.
"In the alternative, President Trump requests that this Court grant a partially secured stay of execution until 30 days after the resolution of post-trial motions and authorize President Trump to post a bond in an appropriate fraction of the amount of the judgment," the filing said.
Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement, “The figure awarded to Ms. Carroll is egregiously excessive. The Court must exercise its authority to prevent Ms. Carroll’s from enforcing this absurd judgment, which will not withstand appeal.”
