Former president Donald Trump has gotten a temporary reprieve on collection of his $464 million civil fraud judgment.
A New York appeals court agreed today to delay collection of the judgment – but only if Trump can put up $175 million within 10 days, according to an Associated Press report.
If Trump can come up with the money, the state will be barred from seizing his assets while he appeals the judgment, the AP reported.
The fraud judgment stems from a January ruling that found Trump and his businesses liable for “blatant” fraud related to overstating the value of real estate assets to lenders and insurers. Trump was originally given until today to post a bond for the full amount – currently about $464 million including interest – to prevent the New York attorney general from seizing his assets to satisfy the judgment.
Trump’s legal team had pushed for leniency on the bond, saying that despite negotiations with some of the world’s largest insurance companies, “very few bonding companies will consider a bond of anything approaching that magnitude.”
The Trump Organization reportedly approached 30 surety companies – including industry giants like Allianz, AXA< Berkshire Hathaway and others – through four separate brokers, according to a report by The Financial Times. Despite these efforts, Trump failed to secure the bond.
The former president was reportedly even rebuffed by Chubb, which recently underwrote a bond of more than $91 million to enable him to appeal a defamation judgment awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll.
Chubb reportedly considered posting a bond for the fraud judgment, but concluded it could not accept real estate as collateral.
Gary Giulietti, head of global brokerage Lockton Companies, said in an affidavit that Trump had hired Lockton to secure a bond for the fraud case, but “despite scouring the market, we have been unsuccessful in our effort … for the simple reason that an appeal bond for $464mn is a practical impossibility under the circumstances presented.”
Today’s appeals court ruling came just before New York Attorney General Letitia James was expected to start the process of collecting the judgment, the AP reported.
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