New York [US], March 25 (ANI): In a relief to former US President Donald Trump, a New York appellate court on Monday ruled that it would accept a far smaller bond of USD 175 million to cover his USD 464 million civil fraud judgement, ABC News reported. The Appellate Division, First Department, said Trump can post a bond “in the amount of USD 175 million” to cover the judgement.

Trump’s attorneys had argued obtaining a bond for the full amount of USD 464 million was a “practical impossibility.” The panel of five judges also opted to delay enforcement of the USD 464 million judgement by 10 days.

The ruling comes as Trump and his sons faced a Monday deadline to pay or secure a bond, or risk New York Attorney General Letitia James beginning the process of seizing the former president’s prized assets, ABC News reported. “It is ordered that the motion is granted to the extent of staying enforcement of those portions of the Judgment (1) ordering disgorgement to the Attorney General of USD 464,576,230.62, conditioned on defendants-appellants posting, within ten (10) days of the date of this order, an undertaking in the amount of USD 175 million dollars,” the two-page order said, ABC News reported.

Trump, addressing reporters during his appearance Monday at a hearing in his hush money criminal case, thanked the appellate court for the ruling. “I greatly respect the decision of the Appellate Division, and I’ll post either USD 175 million in cash or bonds or security or whatever is necessary very quickly within the 10 days, and I thank the Appellate Division for acting quickly,” Trump said. “We got what we wanted,” one source close to Trump told ABC News.

Thirty bond companies had declined to offer Trump a bond to cover the full USD 464 million judgment and were waiting for the appeals court to rule. In a statement, a spokesperson for the New York attorney general said, “The USD 464 million judgement–plus interest–against Donald Trump and the other defendants still stands.” “Donald Trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud,” the statement said. “The court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his organisation.”

Trump attorney Alina Habba, in a statement, said, “We are extremely pleased with the ruling issued by the Appellate Division. This monumental holding reigns in Judge Engoron’s verdict, which is an affront to all Americans. This is the first important step in fighting back against Letitia James and her targeted witch hunt against my client which started before she ever stepped foot in office.”

In February, Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump and his sons had committed a decade of fraud by inflating their assets to obtain better business deals. Trump and his sons have denied all wrongdoing and have appealed the ruling. The finding and USD 354 million penalty, plus interest, immediately presented a cash crunch for a man who successfully ran for president based on his wealth and success. “I mean I became president because of the brand, OK? I became president. I think it’s the hottest brand in the world,” Trump told the attorney general’s office during a deposition last year.

Since Judge Engoron’s order last month, Trump’s lawyers have made a concerted effort to delay the enforcement of the massive financial penalty in his civil fraud case as well as the USD 83.3 million judgement he was ordered to pay after a jury found him liable for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, has filed a notice of appeal in that case.

ABC News reported that following Trump’s fraud judgement, Trump’s lawyers first asked Judge Engoron to delay entering the judgement by 30 days “to allow for an orderly post-judgement process, particularly given the magnitude of the judgement.”

Engoron denied that request and signed the judgement on Feb. 22; the following day, the New York Supreme Court clerk entered the judgement, effectively starting the clock for the financial penalties in the case. “You have failed to explain, much less justify, any basis for a stay,” Engoron wrote in response to the defence’s request. “I am confident that the Appellate Division will protect your appellate rights.”

The following week, Trump’s lawyers asked New York’s Appellate Division, First Department for permission to post a USD 100 million bond — a fraction of the over USD 550 million needed to cover the full judgement. They advised the court that a bond for the complete judgement was “impossible” and that the Trump Organisation might have to sell off properties. “In the absence of a stay on the terms herein outlined, properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances, and there would be no way to recover any property sold following a successful appeal and no means to recover the resulting financial losses from the Attorney General,” defence attorneys said.

Lawyers for the New York attorney general pushed back against their request, arguing Trump might attempt to evade punishment if his appeal fails. An appellate judge on Feb. 28 denied Trump’s request for a stay of the financial penalty, but lifted a ruling Judge Engoron handed down prohibiting Trump from running any New York company and accessing lines of credit, opening the door for Trump to ask surety companies for a bond.

But Trump’s lawyers returned to the same court last Monday, asking again for a delay because finding a bond company to sign off on a USD 550 million bond was a “practical impossibility,” they told the court. Because of the size of the bond and the necessity for Trump to use property as collateral, more than 30 surety companies turned down the potential bond, according to a court filing, ABC News reported.
“Perhaps worst of all, the Attorney General argues that defendants should be forced to dispose of iconic, multi-billion-dollar real-estate holdings in a ‘fire sale,'” a defence lawyer told the court.

Trump himself has claimed that he has almost USD 500 million in cash, but his lawyers have argued that he can’t both pay the bond and run his companies. Despite not spending any of his own money on his presidential campaign in 2020, Trump also claimed he wanted to use the money on his current campaign. “Billions of dollars of value, billions of dollars in properties, but they’d like to take the cash away, so I can’t use it on the campaign,” Trump said last week.

Trump’s lawyers also made a similar effort to delay the enforcement of the judgement in his USD 83.3 million defamation case, though the former president eventually secured a USD 91 million bond for the judgement plus interest by using a brokerage account as collateral, ABC News reported. While James won’t be putting a padlock on buildings like Trump Tower or 40 Wall Street, she took initial steps last week to potentially seize a golf course and estate that Trump owns in New York’s Westchester County by registering the judgement there. “I’m going to assume they’re going to go to the New York properties first because that’s the easiest thing to do,” Steven Cohen, a New York attorney whose work includes enforcing judgements, told ABC News, said of a potential process to seize Trump’s assets. (ANI)

New York judge sets April 15 trial date in Trump “hush money” case

New York [US], March 26 (ANI): A New York judge has scheduled former US President Donald Trump’s hush money trial to begin on April 15, enabling his first criminal trial to begin this spring following a last-minute delay, as reported by The Hill. Trump, who has looked to postpone all four of his criminal cases beyond the election, requested the judge toss his case over new documents recently turned over, or at least sanction Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) and postpone the trial.

However, during a hearing on Monday, Judge Juan Merchan rejected all of those requests and ruled in favour of Bragg by refusing to push the trial deeper into the campaign season, setting jury selection for April 15. “The court finds that the people have complied and continue to comply with their discovery obligations,” Merchan said.

Trump’s trial had long been scheduled to begin on Monday, but at the last minute, Bragg’s office agreed to a multi-week delay, according to The Hill. This comes after the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York turned over more than 100,000 pages of records in recent weeks. Following this, the parties traded blame for why the documents did not come to light earlier.

Rather than begin the trial on Monday, the parties instead convened to sort out the document kerfuffle.
Trump attended the hearing alongside a roughly half-dozen of his lawyers, who were occasionally whispering to them but otherwise sitting stone-faced.

Moreover, he sat back in his chair for most of the hearing, looking ahead towards the judge, The Hill reported. After the hearing, Trump repeated familiar claims that Bragg’s case was brought to keep him from campaigning for the presidential elections, scheduled for November. “This is a case that could have been brought three and a half years ago and now they’re fighting over days because they want to try to do it during the election. This is election interference. That’s all that is. Election interference,” he said.

Trump is charged in the case with 34 counts of falsifying business records over reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid adult film star Stormy DanielsUSD 130,000 just before the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.

Trump, who has acknowledged the reimbursements but denied the affair, has pleaded not guilty, as reported by The Hill. However, Trump’s team and prosecutors, inside the courtroom, disagreed about how many new and relevant documents there were, with Trump attorney Todd Blanche claiming there were “thousands and thousands” without providing a specific number.

Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo, meanwhile, estimated there were only about 300 new, relevant records. Blanche also went further, asserting that Bragg’s office was obligated to have the new documents months ago so Trump could adequately prepare his defence.

Merchan condemned the notion and raised his voice at one point as he pressed Blanche to cite a singular past case supporting his position. “If you don’t have a case right now, it is really disconcerting because the allegations the defence makes in all of your papers, about the people’s misconduct, is incredibly serious, unbelievably serious,” Merchan said.

“You’re literally accusing the Manhattan DA’s office and the people assigned to this case of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it. And you don’t have a single cite to support that position?” he added. (ANI)