A New York appeals court on Monday reduced former President Donald Trump‘s civil fraud judgment to $175 million and granted a 10-day delay for him to pay the reduced bond.
The appeals court’s decision came on the same day that the grace period for Trump to pay his $464 million civil fraud trial judgment from February was set to expire. The order marks a significant victory for the former president, who was facing the prospect of Democratic Attorney General Letitia James beginning to seize his assets as soon as Monday had the appeals court not intervened.
Trump previously asked the appeals court to pause the $464 million judgment against him or be willing to accept a bond of only $100 million, and the appeals court appears to have granted the former president a major lifeline with its order on Monday.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in penalties, plus interest, in the civil fraud case that dealt a remarkable blow to his family business empire, the Trump Organization. Last week, Trump’s attorneys said he could not secure the full $464 million bond.
Trump attorney Alina Habba, one of the main attorneys defending him for weeks in Engoron’s court, said her team is “extremely pleased” with the appellate court’s ruling.
“This monumental holding reins in Judge Engoron’s verdict, which is an affront to all Americans,” Habba said. “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.”
The appeals court on Monday also paused the enforcement of other penalties, such as those barring Trump and top executives from serving in leadership roles in their Empire State business for several years. However, a court-appointed monitor for the Trump Organization will remain in place for the time being.
If Trump posts the $175 million bond in time, James will have to wait to seize any Trump assets until after the appeal is resolved.
“We will abide by the decision of the Appellate Division, and post either a bond, equivalent securities, or cash,” Trump said in a statement following the ruling.
Earlier this month, James filed judgments in Westchester County, where Trump’s golf resort and a private 212-acre estate are located, which marked the first step toward seizing the properties.
James also released a statement following the appeal court ruling, saying the former president “is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud.”
“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 organization,” James said. “The $464 million judgment — plus interest — against Donald Trump and the other defendants still stands.”
Engoron previously ruled Trump inflated his net worth and that of his company to get more favorable loan agreements. Trump has repeatedly denied the accusations and vowed to appeal the case.
“I thank the Appellate Division for acting quickly, but Judge Engoron is a disgrace to this country, and this should not be allowed to happen,” Trump told reporters outside of the courtroom on Monday.
James has warned Trump and his organization that if they do not pay the full judgment in cash, she will get a judge to seize some of the former president’s assets, including his prized skyscraper, 40 Wall Street.
Meanwhile, Trump was in New York criminal court Monday for a hearing in his separate criminal hush money case in which a judge is weighing his lawyers’ complaints that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York’s recent dump of more than 100,000 pages of filings should justify a 90-day delay of the trial. The trial was initially slated to begin on Monday before Justice Juan Merchan delayed the trial to mid-April at the earliest.
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Merchan decided from the bench Monday that Trump’s hush money trial will begin on April 15, and he ruled against his motion to dismiss the case.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, charged Trump last year with 34 counts of falsifying business records over reimbursements to his then-attorney Michael Cohen, who paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to remain quiet about an affair she said she’d had with Trump years earlier. The former president acknowledges the reimbursements but denies the affair and has pleaded not guilty.
