Lawyers of the former president Donald Trump They filed a formal complaint on Friday $83 million defamation verdict was awarded to writer E. Jean Carroll – and they posted the $91 million bond needed to keep it from being collected while the appeal was pending.
The lawyers asked the judge a question lawsuit For an order approving bond in the amount of $91,630,000 and staying Carroll’s judgment.
Conditions the garden — and it’s unclear how much money or collateral Trump has put up. The source of the bond is the Federal Insurance Company, which is authorized to transact business in New York. It is based in Chesapeake, Virginia and New Jersey, and the company appears to be a subsidiary of Chubb Insurance Company. The document is signed by the former president.
The judge ordered Carroll’s lawyers to respond to Trump’s request by Monday morning. He said that if he has objections, he can hold a hearing that afternoon.
The complaint came as a surprise, as Trump’s lawyers have repeatedly asked the judge more time post the bond and reduce the amount. The bond was needed to prevent Carroll from having to go to court to seek a court order while an appeal is pending, which could take months or even years. This is more than the actual judgment amount to calculate the New York interest rate of 9% per annum.
The automatic stay was set to expire on Monday, when Carroll’s lawyers could move to collect money awarded to him for defaming Trump when he was president. $5 million verdict against him last year. He is also appealing against this verdict and posted $5.5 million as security for this ruling.
Carroll called the development “fantastic” in a Substack post. He wrote that his lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, “is strong enough to lift a gold toilet in Trump Tower from the floor and throw it out the window, but this bond saves Robbie the trouble of meeting with US marshals on Monday.”
Court documents show that Trump signed the new bond agreement on Tuesday and FIC’s lawyer on Wednesday – the same day Trump’s lawyers filed a letter asking the judge to stay the sentence for three days after ruling on the court’s previous requests. stay, he has yet to do.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected this request in an order on Thursday and criticized Trump for trying to rush his decision. “Mr. Trump’s current situation is the result of his own expansionary actions. From January 26th he should have organized his finances, knowing that he might have to approve this decision, but he waited 25 days after the jury’s decision” and shortly before the automatic stay expired to seek relief , the judge wrote.
Trump faces a similar and bigger challenge in New York state court, where he was slapped with a year last month $464 million civil fraud lawsuit.
Trump’s lawyers asked the appeals court to reduce the amount of bond he must post in the case, a request that was denied by the judge hearing the case. “To account for post-judgment interest and appellate costs, a surety will often set the bond at 120% of the judgment or more,” Trump’s attorney Clifford Roberts said in a filing with the appeals court. That would be just over $500 million.
Last month, a single judge from the state Appellate Division denied Trump’s request to reduce the size of the bond. 100 million dollars, but set an accelerated briefing schedule for Trump’s stay motion. That leaves open the possibility that the full panel of judges will act before Trump offers the bond.
The current deadline for him to file is March 25 – the same day jury selection has begun At Trump’s criminal trial in New York state court. He is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments made to a porn star in the final days of the 2016 election. Trump pleaded not guilty.
CORRECTION (March 8, 2024 at 7:35 p.m.): An earlier version of this article incorrectly described an action stemming from an appeal of last year’s $5 million judgment against Trump. He kept $5.5 million as collateral; did not post bond.