Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after voting at a polling place at the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center in Palm Beach, Florida on March 19, 2024.
Joe Radle | Getty Images
Donald Trump is at serious risk that the New York attorney general will begin collecting a $454 million civil business fraud judgment against him on Monday unless an appeals court grants the former president a last-minute stay of execution. confronting.
President Trump’s son Eric, co-defendant in fraud case, accuses attorney general Letitia James Sunday, who was trying to make his father bankrupt with a judgment.
Donald Trump’s lawyers say Trump cannot post an appellate bond that would prevent the AG from collecting the judgment because he is trying to overturn it, and James told the Court of Appeals last week He said Trump’s request for a moratorium should be denied. From entry into force.
“They’re trying to take his cash, they’re trying to bankrupt him, they’re trying to seriously hurt him,” Eric Trump said in an interview on Fox News.
“And that’s going to backfire because he’s going to win this in November and everyone in this country knows exactly what these guys are doing,” Eric said.
Eric also said, “I’ve never seen such a strong bond before.”
“When I came to them, everyone said, ‘Hey, can we get a $500 million bond?'” … [T]Hey, I was laughing. They were laughing,” Eric said.
Eric’s charges come days after news that James’ office had registered a large-scale fraud judgment with the county clerk’s office in Westchester County, New York. Mr. James would need to register if he moves to foreclose on Mr. Trump’s golf course and Seven Springs property in the county to satisfy part of the judgment.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Eric, and his other adult son, Donald Trump Jr., have announced that the Trump Organization, along with itself and two executives, will be relinquished by the Trump Organization as a result of a Manhattan Supreme Court case. He was found guilty of corporate fraud. James’ firm was the plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Last month, Judge Arthur Engoron found that the defendants fraudulently inflated the nominal value of Trump’s assets in order to increase his net worth and obtain more favorable financing terms for Trump Organization properties. . Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have run their father’s company since his father was elected president in 2016.
Former President Donald Trump’s son and co-defendant Eric Trump gestures while walking outside the courtroom during the Trump Organization civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, New York, on November 3. , 2023.
Shannon Stapleton Reuter
Trump is responsible for most of the $464 million disgorgement and interest ordered by Engoron in the lawsuit. However, President Trump’s sons were each ordered to pay $4 million.
Donald Trump asked an intermediate appellate court last week to suspend his sentence, but his lawyers said it had proven “impossible” for him to obtain an appeal bond.
Such a bond would guarantee that the state would receive the judgment if President Trump loses his appeal of the case and is otherwise unable to comply with the judgment.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers said the surety company would require him to come up with more than $1 billion in cash or equivalent funds before it would consider posting an appellate bond in the case.
Lawyers said in court filings that more than 30 companies he approached for bonds refused to accept real estate as collateral.
If the appeals court does not grant Trump a temporary reprieve from the sentence, Trump could ask the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, for a temporary reprieve. But it’s unclear whether Mr. Trump will have much success at that level.
Monday is the first day that Mr. James can begin the process of seizing Mr. Trump’s assets to satisfy the judgment without being blocked by a court order.
Losers in New York civil cases must regularly post appeal bonds or be held accountable for judgments against them when they appeal a verdict.
