Donald J. Trump on Friday posted a $91.6 million bond in a defamation case he lately misplaced to the author E. Jean Carroll, staving off a possible authorized and monetary catastrophe simply days earlier than a deadline to safe the deal.
The bond, offered by an outdoor insurance coverage firm, will forestall Ms. Carroll from accumulating the judgment whereas Mr. Trump appeals.
A federal jury awarded Ms. Carroll $83.3 million in January, and Mr. Trump lately requested that the judgment be paused. The decide presiding over the case, Lewis A. Kaplan, denied Mr. Trump’s request for a preliminary reprieve, placing strain on Mr. Trump to both provide you with the cash himself or safe assist from an outdoor firm.
With a Monday deadline looming, Mr. Trump secured the bond, which is increased than the $83.3 million judgment as a result of the previous president can also be liable for curiosity.
The bond is a promise from the corporate providing it — Federal Insurance coverage Firm, an arm of the insurance coverage large Chubb — to cowl Mr. Trump’s judgment if he loses his enchantment and fails to pay. In alternate, Mr. Trump should pay the corporate a charge and pledge collateral, together with as a lot money as attainable.
In a court docket submitting Friday morning, Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, requested Decide Kaplan to approve the bond as “satisfactory and ample” to dam Ms. Carroll from accumulating the award earlier than Mr. Trump’s enchantment is determined.
In a press release, Ms. Habba stated she was “extremely assured” that an appeals court docket “will overturn this egregious judgment,” citing “quite a few prejudicial errors” made at trial.
A Trump marketing campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, stated in a press release that the bond had been filed “within the full quantity of the baseless judgment within the Democrat-funded Carroll Witch Hunt, which is being appealed and litigated.”
Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, declined to touch upon Friday.
The bond in Ms. Carroll’s case removes, a minimum of for now, simply one of many many looming threats from Mr. Trump’s authorized docket, which additionally contains 4 legal indictments, the primary of which goes to trial in about two weeks.
In a separate civil case, Mr. Trump faces a judgment of greater than $450 million levied by a New York State decide in a fraud lawsuit introduced by Lawyer Normal Letitia James. The decide, Arthur F. Engoron, sided with Ms. James, concluding that Mr. Trump had fraudulently inflated his internet value to reap favorable mortgage phrases and different monetary advantages.
Mr. Trump lately requested a state appeals court docket to simply accept solely a $100 million bond in that case. His legal professionals stated it could be “inconceivable” to acquire a bond for the total quantity, which is $454 million and counting with curiosity.
A single appeals court docket decide turned down his request, however Mr. Trump can strive once more earlier than a full panel of 5 appellate court docket judges.
Except that panel cuts him a break, Mr. Trump might want to publish a bond for the total quantity by March 25 — which occurs to be the opening day of his first legal trial. If he fails, Ms. James is anticipated to maneuver swiftly to gather, seizing the previous president’s financial institution accounts and probably even a few of his New York properties.
Though Mr. Trump estimates his internet value within the billions, a lot of it stems from the worth of his properties. He has greater than $350 million in money and investments he can promote in a rush, a latest New York Instances evaluation discovered, properly in need of what he owes between the fraud case and the defamation verdict.
The award to Ms. Carroll got here in a January trial over how a lot she ought to obtain in damages for defamatory statements Mr. Trump made about her in 2019 after she accused him of a decades-old rape — and for his persevering with assaults on her since, on social media, at information conferences and in the course of the trial itself.
Mr. Trump was discovered liable, in a separate trial final yr, for sexually abusing Ms. Carroll within the mid-Nineteen Nineties and for making a defamatory social media publish about her in 2022. The jury in that case awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million, and Mr. Trump later posted about $5.6 million in money in a court docket account pending his enchantment of that verdict.
Earlier than securing the bond, Mr. Trump’s legal professionals had made an alternate proposal: that Decide Kaplan enable Mr. Trump to publish a bond “in a fraction of the quantity” of the award. The protection requested for the smaller bond quantity whereas the decide finally dominated on the previous president’s request that the decision be thrown out.
Ms. Carroll’s legal professionals had urged the decide to disclaim Mr. Trump’s request for a keep.
They argued that the previous president had not supplied any details about his funds or the character and placement of his belongings; that he had not specified what portion of his belongings have been liquid or defined how Ms. Carroll may go about accumulating her judgment; and that he had not addressed the dangers of the massive judgment obtained by Ms. James’s workplace in addition to the numerous legal fees Mr. Trump faces “which may finish his profession as a businessman completely.”
“He merely asks the court docket to ‘belief me,’ and provides, in a case with an $83.3 million judgment in opposition to him, the court docket submitting equal of a paper serviette, signed by the least reliable of debtors,” Ms. Carroll’s legal professionals wrote.
