New York court lowers Trump’s bond to $175m and gives him 10 days to secure it

 

New York court lowers Trump’s bond to $175m and gives him 10 days to secure it

 

New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, had given ex-president until Monday to secure bond covering $454m loss in fraud case

 

Dominic Rushe and Lauren Aratani in New York

Mon 25 Mar 2024 11.43 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/25/trump-fraud-bond-deadline

 

A New York court handed Donald Trump a lifeline on Monday as time ran out for the former president to secure a bond covering the $454m loss for his recent fraud case.

 

A panel of appellate court judges gave Trump 10 days to secure a far smaller $175m bond just hours before New York’s attorney general could legally begin the long, slow process of seizing his assets.

 

Last week Trump’s lawyers said it was a “practical impossibility” for him to secure a bond for half a billion dollars, covering the full fine from his fraud loss.

 

“A bond of this size is rarely if ever seen. In the unusual circumstance that a bond of this size is issued, it is provided to the largest public companies in the world, not to individuals or privately held businesses,” his lawyers argued.

 

The attorney general, Letitia James, had made clear that she will seize Trump assets if the bond is not secured. On Friday her office filed judgments in Westchester county, north of New York City, home to Trump’s sprawling Seven Springs estate and golf course.

 

A judgment has already been entered in New York City, home to some of Trump’s most famous assets, including Trump Tower and 40 Wall Street.

 

The moves are the first step in a chain of events James will have to take to secure Trump assets. “It’s not going to be a piece of cake,” said Nikos Passas, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northeastern University.

 

Passas said that besides the obvious political issues and Trump’s attacks on the attorney general, James faced difficulties over the complex and opaque financial structure of Trump’s assets. “There may be a lot of debts she may or may not know about. She may have to file a subpoena for financial information,” said Passas.

 

Passas said Trump might look to reach a deal with bond guarantors that takes into account a potentially huge Friday windfall.

 

Trump added a potential $3bn to his assets on Friday when his Truth Social social network finalized a long-in-the-making stock-market listing. The investment vehicle that merged with Truth Social has become a “meme stock” – an investment that has attracted a cult-like and whose price seems out of proportion to the business fundamentals.

 

But that too may be a hard sell. “Meme stocks notoriously go up and down like crazy,” said Passas. “Whoever makes a decision to deal with Trump at this point will be making a political as well as a financial decision.”