Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after voting at the polls at the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center on March 19, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images
Donald Trump faces a serious risk that New York’s attorney general will begin in search of a $454 million civil fraud verdict on Monday unless an appeals court grants the former president a last-minute reprieve.
Trump’s son Eric, a co-defendant in the fraud case, blamed the attorney general Letitia James on Sunday for attempting to bankrupt his father by judgment.
Donald Trump’s lawyers have said he’s unable to pay an appellate bond that will prevent the AG from collecting judgment in his efforts to overturn his fraud conviction, and James told an appeals court last week that it should deny his motion to remain the judgment since entry into force.
“They’re trying to starve him of cash, they’re trying to bankrupt him, they’re trying to hurt him so badly,” Eric Trump said in an interview on Fox News.
“And it will backfire because he will win it in November and everyone in this country widely knows exactly what these people are doing,” Eric said.
Eric also said, “No one has ever seen a bond of this size.”
“Every single person when I came to them asked, ‘Hey, can I get a half-billion-dollar bond?’ … [T]hey, I was laughing. They were laughing,” Eric said.
Eric’s complaint came days after news that James’ office had registered a mass fraud verdict with the Westchester County, New York, clerk’s office. Registration is required if James intends to seize Trump’s golf course and Seven Springs estate in the county to partially satisfy the judgment.
Following a trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, Donald Trump, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Eric, and his other adult son, Donald Trump Jr., were found liable for fraud at the Trump Organization, along with the company itself and two executives. James’ office was the plaintiff in this case.
Last month, Judge Arthur Engoron found that the defendants had fraudulently inflated the reported value of Trump’s net worth in order to increase his alleged net worth and obtain more favorable loan terms for properties owned by the Trump Organization. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have been running their father’s company since he was elected president in 2016.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s son and co-defendant Eric Trump gestures as he leaves the courtroom on the day of the Trump Organization’s civil fraud trial in the New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., November 3, 2023.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
The elder Trump is responsible for most of the $464 million in restitution and interest that Engoron was ordered to pay in damages in the case. However, Trump’s sons were each ordered to pay $4 million.
Last week, Donald Trump asked a mid-level appeals court to stay the verdict, and his lawyers said obtaining an appellate bond had proven “not possible.”
Such a bond would guarantee that the state would receive a judgment if Trump loses his appeal in the case and is otherwise unable to comply.
Trump’s lawyers said bail bonds companies wanted him to have more than $1 billion in cash or cash equivalents before they would consider bail bonds in the case.
Lawyers said in a court filing that greater than 30 corporations he approached about obtaining bonds refused to just accept the property as collateral.
If the appeals court doesn’t agree with Trump to temporarily overturn the ruling, he can ask the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to grant it. However, it’s unclear whether Trump can be very successful at this level.
Monday is the first day James can begin the technique of seizing Trump’s assets to satisfy the judgment without a court order stopping her from doing so.
Losers in civil cases in New York must routinely post an appeal bond or be liable for their judgments while appealing the verdict.
