Uncharted Territory’: What Happens If President Trump Can’t Post $454M Bond In Sham Case By Monday’s Deadline?
Legal experts weigh in on Trump’s options after his attorneys said he couldn’t secure a $464 million appeal bond he needs in a New York civil fraud judgement against him.
Trump’s lawyers wrote in a Monday court filing that obtaining the nearly half-a-billion appeal was a “practical impossibility under the circumstances presented.”
David Gelman, a criminal defense attorney and a former deputy district attorney, called the judgment a “unicorn.” He argued that the judge should give Trump a lot more leeway to satisfy the bond because “not even the richest man in the world has $464 million lying around.”
Gelman told Fox News Digital that “everyone needs to realize how unprecedented this is.”
“There has never been a judgment of this magnitude against a company or individual in the history of New York, so we are really in uncharted territory.”
Gelman said Trump has three options: not appeal, ask the court to allow Attorney General James to use his property as collateral, or take it to a federal court and say the New York law is unconstitutional on its face.
“Courts really don’t deny bonds when there are other ways to pay. Again, because this is so unprecedented, and I don’t care how rich you are, nobody has that much liquid cash. So if a court had the option to allow a defendant to use some other collateral to satisfy the bond, they will,” Gelman said.
He added that there was no reason for the judge or Attorney General James to say no.
“You’re dealing with Trump. He’s not going anywhere. He’s the most famous and well known person in the world. It’s not like he can just disappear and can’t be found,” Gelman said.
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What will happen if Trump can’t post $454M bond in his civil fraud case by Monday’s deadline?
By: NY Post, March 19, 2024:
New York Attorney General Letitia James will be free to start going after Donald Trump’s prized properties should the former president fail to make the deadline to post the $454 million bond in his civil fraud case.
Trump, 77, on Monday filed papers in an appeal court case seeking to get out of having to post the bond as he fights the massive judgment from February — which accrues $112,000 in interest daily.
The presumptive Republican 2024 presidential nominee had approached over 30 firms to secure the bond — to no avail — and he’s facing “insurmountable difficulties” getting the financial backing, his attorneys wrote in the filings.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered the hefty judgment against the real estate mogul in February after a three month trial in which the AG’s office argued Trump exaggerated his net worth by billions a year on financial statements to get better loan and insurance terms.
[…]
“The real difficulty is the size of the judgment is so huge.”
The bond would require Trump to post 120% of what he owes with collateral — amounting to $557.5 million, according to his lawyers.
Trump previously sought to lower the bond amount to $100 million and is now seeking to get out of paying the bond altogether.
O’Brien said that if Trump can prove to the court that he is likely to ultimately win his appeal, he “might have an argument” to get the bond amount lowered.
[…]
What happens if Trump doesn’t make the deadline?
If the Appellate Division, First Department doesn’t grant Trump’s bid to pause Monday’s deadline for his bond and if he can’t come up with the money by then, AG James can start going after his assets — a measure she said she won’t hesitate to use.
New York real estate lawyer Melissa Levin said if Trump is forced to cough up the full amount by Monday he is “going to have to start selling off his properties himself to get the rest of the money to pay the bond.”
“If he doesn’t do that, there would be nothing stopping Letitia James and New York State from asking the court to seize certain assets to pay off the judgment amount that way,” she added.
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