Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media as he arrives at a Manhattan courthouse trial in a civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Letitia James against him, his adult sons, the Trump Organization and others in New York City, U.S., October 4, 2023.
Mike Segar | Reuters
Donald Trump should have pledged real estate he owns as collateral against a $464 million business fraud judgment if he were “truly unable” to get an appeal bond for that amount, the New York attorney general’s office said in a court filing Wednesday.
Trump “at a minimum” should have let the courts hold those properties while he appealed, a lawyer for Attorney General Letitia James wrote.
The attorney, Dennis Fan, argued that Trump had not provided any evidence this week to support his claim that it was “impossible” to obtain an appeal bond using his real estate holdings as collateral.
“Defendants supply no documentary evidence that demonstrates precisely what real property they offered” to potential insurers, wrote Fan, in the filing to Manhattan appeals court judges.
Nor did they report “on what terms that property was offered, or precisely why” bond insurers “were unwilling to accept the assets,” according to the filing.
The office made these points as part of a broader argument that Trump hasn’t really exhausted all his options to get a bond that would stop the massive fraud judgment from coming due.
Instead, they suggested Trump and his lawyers are trying to make it sound impossible to get a bond in the hopes that this helps convince appeals judges to “put the brakes” on the judgment — before Trump has to either produce the whole amount or risk default.
Unless a court intervenes, James could start collecting on the judgment — by seizing Trump’s assets — as soon as next week.
Attorney General Letitia James arrives for the civil fraud trial of former President Donald Trump and his children at New York State Supreme Court on November 08, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
As this deadline nears, Trump is growing more and more furious.
“KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF OF TRUMP TOWER!” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee wrote Wednesday in a fundraising appeal.
“I would be forced to mortgage or sell Great Assets, perhaps at Fire Sale prices, and if and when I win the Appeal, they would be gone,” he wrote the day before. “Does that make sense?”
In fact, it does: Anyone who loses a civil case in New York is required to post a bond to avoid…
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