Global Courant
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after voting at a polling station 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 attempt to collect a $454 million civil corporate fraud judgment against him on Monday unless an appeals court grants the former president a last-minute reprieve.
Trump’s son Eric, co-defendant in fraud case, accused attorney general Letitia James on Sunday he tried to bankrupt his father with the judgment.
Donald Trump’s lawyers have said he is unable to post an appellate bond that would prevent the AG from collecting the judgment as he tries to overturn the fraud verdict — and James told an appeals court last week that it is his had to reject the request to pause. the judgment does not take effect.
“They’re trying to rob him of his money, they want to bankrupt him, they want to hurt him so much,” Eric Trump told Fox News in an interview.
Read more CNBC political coverage
“And it’s going to backfire, because he’s going to win this in November, and everyone in this country universally knows exactly what these people are doing,” Eric said.
Eric also said, “Nobody’s ever seen a band this size.”
“Everyone when I came to them said, ‘Hey, can I get a half-billion dollar bond?’ … (T)hey laughed. They laughed,” Eric said.
Eric’s complaint came days after news that James’ office had registered the massive fraud judgment with the Westchester County, New York, clerk’s office. Registration is required if James wants to move to seize Trump’s golf course and the Seven Springs estate in that county to partially satisfy the judgment.
Donald Trump, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Eric, and his other adult son, Donald Trump Jr., along with two business executives, were found liable for fraud at the Trump Organization following a trial in Manhattan Supreme Court. James’ office was the plaintiff in the case.
Last month, Judge Arthur Engoron ruled that the defendants fraudulently inflated the reported value of Trump’s assets to boost his alleged net worth and obtain more favorable loan terms on Trump Organization properties. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have run their father’s company since he was elected president in 2016.
The elder Trump is responsible for most of the $464 million in disgorgement and interest ordered by Engoron in damages in the case. However, the Trump sons had to pay $4 million each.
Donald Trump last week asked a middle appeals court to suspend the sentence, with his lawyers saying it has proven “impossible” for him to obtain bail on appeal.
Such a bond would guarantee that the state would receive the judgment if Trump loses his appeal in the case and is otherwise unable to comply.
Trump’s lawyers said surety companies wanted him to have more than $1 billion in cash or equivalents before they would consider writing an appeal bond in the case.
The lawyers said in a lawsuit that the more than 30 companies he approached to obtain a bond refused to accept real estate as collateral.
If the appeals court does not grant Trump a temporary relief from the sentence, he can ask the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, to give him one. However, it is not clear that Trump would have much success at that level.
Monday is the first day James can begin seizing Trump’s property to comply with the judgment, without a court order stopping her from doing so.
Losers in civil cases in New York must routinely file an appellate bond or be liable for the judgments against them if they appeal a judgment.
