US District Judge Lewis F. Kaplan has denied former President Donald Trump a stay in paying his eight-figure civil judgment to writer E. Jean Carroll in a Thursday ruling. This means Trump now has no other option but to immediately post the judgment bond plus interest, or simply pay the judgment outright.
Politico legal reporter Kyle Cheney tweeted an excerpt of Judge Kaplan's ruling on Thursday, in which he remarked specifically on Trump's strategy to delay and postpone accountability at every opportunity.
"Mr. Trump's current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions," Kaplan wrote. "He has had since January 26 to organize his finances with the knowledge that he might need to bond this judgment, yet he waited until 25 days after the jury verdict — and only shortly before the expiration of Rule 62's automatic 30-day stay of judgment — to file his prior motion for an unsecured or partially secured stay pending resolution of post-trial motions."
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"His present application for a temporary administrative stay is denied," he added.
In early February, a New York jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million after she sued him for defamation. Carroll filed the lawsuit after Trump baselessly accused her of lying about when he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s, saying she fabricated the claim for financial gain. That judgment came roughly a year after a separate $5 million judgment in Carroll's favor for sexual abuse.
Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a post-trial press conference that her client would appeal the judgment. However, under New York law, any appeal requires that a bond equal to the initial judgment plus 9% interest be set aside in a separate, court-managed account, to ensure the plaintiff would be paid if the defendant loses the appeal. When including the statutory interest, Trump will have to post more than $90 million while the appeals process plays out.
Kaplan pointed out that at no point in the post-trial process did Trump indicate "what expenses he might incur if required to post a bond or other security, on what terms (if any) he could obtain a conventional bond, or post cash or other assets to secure payment of the judgment, or any other circumstances relevant to the situation." Because the former president already tried unsuccessfully to get a judge to accept a $100 million bond concerning his $454 million civil fraud judgment, Trump may not have the cash on hand for the Carroll judgment, either.
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Even though the judge denied his offer of a lower bond payment, he did add that Trump would be free to seek out bank loans from to help pay the judgment. But that may be easier said than done, given that the former president is now officially an adjudicated fraudster who already has a rocky relationship with financial institutions, given his past history with Deutsche Bank and his pattern of artificially inflating the values of his real estate assets.
On Thursday, former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin suggested that if Trump is unable to get banks to help him pay his judgments, he may have to lean on his foreign business connections. Trump's son, Eric, previously alluded to the Trump Organization having a history of borrowing money from Russia to finance the development of his company's golf resorts, though he later denied making that statement.
Besides having to pay his judgments, Trump is also struggling to pay his sky-high legal fees. He's already paid roughly $55 million in legal costs in 2023 alone, and still has to defend himself in four criminal trials coming up later this year. The first of those trials will take place in Manhattan later this month. So far, Trump's legal team has yet to notch a win in any New York courtroom since leaving office.
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