Former President Donald Trump has until next weekend to post bond in the E. Jean Carroll's defamation case. Should he fail to do so, the former columnist will be allowed to start collecting on the $83.3 million that a Manhattan jury awarded her earlier this year.
Trump, who is facing another huge fine coming from the New York civil-fraud case against him, asked the court to prevent Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan from starting to collect the money as he appeals, even without him posting bond or making a payment in escrow. The former president's argument was that he is so wealthy, he shouldn't need to pay a bond to appeal the defamation ruling.
As an alternative to this request, Trump's lawyers have asked for a substantial reduction of the bond, for the total sum of $24.4 million. They said this amount "would be more than sufficient to secure any minimal risk to Plaintiff."
In the state of New York, as previously reported by Newsweek, an individual must pay a court a cash bond that amounts to 110 percent of the judgment to appeal the ruling of a civil case. That means that Trump has until March 9 to pay more than $91 million if he wants to challenge the defamation penalty.
Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor and professor of law at the University of Alabama School of Law, wrote on her blog that "predictably, Trump asked the court to break the rules just for him, to prevent Kaplan from collecting while he contemplates filing some post-trial motions," adding that "this isn't how it works."
Trump's lawyers' request was quickly rejected by Judge Lewis Kaplan, who said: "The Court declines to grant any stay, much less an unsecured stay, without first having afforded the plaintiff a meaningful opportunity to be heard."
Carroll's attorneys strongly opposed Trump's request, calling the former president the "least trustworthy of borrowers" and saying they have "very serious concerns about Trump's cash position." The Republican's lawyers responded on March 2, saying that Carroll's doubts over his financial situation were in contradiction with previous statements she made about being sure that the former president could afford to pay the money awarded her by the court's ruling.
In May last year, a Manhattan jury found the the former president—the Republican 2024 primary frontrunner—liable for sexually abusing Carroll. She had accused him of raping her in a New York City department store nearly 30 years before. He was ordered to pay the former columnist $5 million in damages, despite denying allegations since 2019.
In a separate case, Trump was found guilty of making defamatory statements against Carroll in 2019 and was ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to the former columnist.
However, the posting of the bond for Carroll's defamation case is only the beginning of Trump's troubles, Joyce wrote.
Last month, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay $355 million in penalties, plus interest, for lying about his wealth in the New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil-fraud case against him. The penalty at the time of the ruling was already above $454 million, and it grows every day by $112,000 in interest.
Trump has raged against the decision, accusing the New York judge, a Democrat, of being politically motivated to persecute him and denying any wrongdoing.
The former president, wrote Joyce on her blog, will have to "come up with $454 million and counting, as interest accrues daily, in the New York AG's civil fraud case against him, where he must post a bond (called an undertaking in New York state cases) later this month if he doesn't want her to start collecting that judgment while he appeals the case."
Trump's attorneys had requested a New York appeals judge to pay just $100m of the $454m judgment for his fraud trial, but the request was promptly rejected by Judge Anil Singh. He said that the "defendants all but concede that Trump has insufficient liquid assets to satisfy the judgment."
"A prevailing plaintiff is entitled to have her award secured, and defendants have never demonstrated that Mr. Trump's liquid assets could satisfy the full amount of the judgment," Singh added.
Trump has until March 25 to secure a stay on the collection of the money he was ordered to pay in the New York civil-fraud case.
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About the writer
Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek Reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on U.S. and European politics, global affairs ... Read more