And that would be doubly embarrassing for him.

A New York appeals court on Monday reduced the $454 million that former President Donald Trump was required to put up while he appeals his civil fraud case. Now Trump must put up, by April 4, a mere $175 million. The trouble is, he may not get a bond for that amount, either. Should that happen, this act of judicial mercy will end up feeling to Trump like a curse.

The stay deprives Trump of the only argument on which he was gaining any traction at all—that the amount the court required him to put up was excessively high. Four hundred and fifty-four million was indeed an unusually large judgment against a private corporation or individual. (The distinction between Trump and the Trump Organization is paper-thin.) Monday’s appeals court decision doesn’t reduce that judgment, as New York State Attorney General Letitia James pointed out in a written statement. But it does dramatically reduce the amount Trump needs to turn over to the state while he pursues his appeal. It also gives us some hint that the appeals court may reduce Judge Arthur Engoron’s $454 million judgment to, well, $175 million.

  • snooggums@midwest.socialEnglish
    311·
    3 months ago

    They could have done nothing and his properties would be getting seized. They are absolutely helping him by dragging this out.

    • KevonLooney
      53·
      3 months ago

      Do you think the process of seizing property is fast? They don’t just change the locks. It’s a whole lot of things. They would probably have to go one by one appraising, finding a buyer, and wading through the debt owed on the mortgage. It’s slow and they don’t want to do any of that, if possible.

      Judgements this large are very rare. Trump is absolutely fucked even coming up with $175 million in cash now and the rest later.

      Remember, the court has a monitor watching the trump org approving every check and money transfer right now. They probably know exactly how much money he has in the bank. They probably just asked for 80% - 90% of what he has available. They are fucking him and he thinks he won.

      • baru@lemmy.world
        41·
        3 months ago

        Remember, the court has a monitor watching the trump org approving every check and money transfer right now.

        The way you wrote that suggests something different than what the monitor does.

        For one, they monitor after the fact. Likely one a month and after book close. So they don’t monitor in detail while it is happening. Secondly, transfers above a certain amount need to be reported. That amount can be an aggregate. Those need to be reported and I think the monitor needs to ok them before they can be executed.

        That’s quite different from what you seemed to suggest, meaning that the monitor needs to approve every check.

        • KevonLooney
          2·
          3 months ago

          It was changed recently. The monitor has to be told ahead of time now.

          Under the order, Trump must give five days advance notice “of any transfer of cash or other assets” totaling $5 million or more, “including transfers to any individual defendant.”

          Under Thursday’s order, Trump must also give the monitor 30 days notice of “any planned creation or dissolution of business entities, including equity ownership purchased or assets acquired by any Defendant,” the judge further ordered on Thursday.

          https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nys-judge-engoron-is-tightening-the-leash-on-trump-2024-3

          • baru@lemmy.world
            2·
            3 months ago

            It was changed recently. The monitor has to be told ahead of time now.

            But only in some cases, not for everything. If a monitor would need to approve everything that would require quite a lot of people. A business often has quite a lot of regular invoices and so on.

            • KevonLooney
              2·
              3 months ago

              You caught me in a minor technicality. Yes, they don’t need to ask the judge if they can buy lunch.

              That doesn’t make a difference overall though. Trump is not going to hide meaningful amounts of money through lunch orders and paychecks.