Former president Donald Trump A New York business is set to fight a huge fine fraud case threatens to remove most of them cash he says he has it.
But first he has to secure a connection – and that might not be so easy.
Trump was ordered to pay on Friday $355 million in fines, plus more than $98 million in interest after a judge charged the former president with fraud for manipulating financial statements to creditors. Interest accrued each day adds $87,502 to Trump’s account.
If he doesn’t want to pay the entire penalty while his pending appeal is pending, Trump will have to file an appeal bond. This is usually 120% of the judgment plus current interest.
At that rate, Trump’s original decision with interest suggests he would have to secure a bond of more than $540 million. But it is unlikely that the real estate baron will be able to use his property as collateral.
“It’s not very attractive to take real estate as collateral,” says Neil Pedersen, owner of Pedersen & Sons, a New York-based bail bond agency.
Trump may have to liquidate some assets to secure the bond, Pedersen said. The bond company will also receive a multi-million dollar settlement.
An appeal against Judge Arthur Engoro’s ruling could take years to process.
Another complicating factor: Trump’s status as a presidential candidate.
Pedersen said it was an “unprecedented” situation for a potential bond company to commit.
“No one should ever have to enforce an indemnity agreement against what could be the next president of the United States,” he said.
Trump has vowed to appeal Engoro’s conviction, which threatens not only his profits but his entire identity as a mega-rich business magnate he has carefully cultivated over decades.
But bond agents may have reservations about working with Trump, whose claims about his business practices and wealth have been successfully challenged in court.
Appeal bonds are used to ensure that a person ordered to pay a judgment cannot abuse the courts to delay or default on that payment.
“Who will ever be closed [Trump] they undertake to enforce that judgment,” said New York business attorney David Slarskey. “Who would do that?”
Trump, a collapse Because he had “more than $400 million in cash” last year, he could technically have the full judgment and interest deposited against him as he appealed the decision. But his lawyer has already said that he will provide bail.
“We have to post the bond, it’s the full amount and then some,” Trump’s attorney Alina Habba told Fox News on Monday.
“We’ll be ready to do it,” he said.
Habba said he expects to post a bond of about $400 million within a 30-day window to file an appeal, which begins after Clerk Engoro enters his final judgment.
Engoron also banned Trump from doing business in New York or applying for loans from state-registered financial institutions for 3 years.
Habba also dismissed a question about whether Trump would have to sell his New York real estate as his legal troubles mount.
But Pedersen warned that this could cause its own “headaches”.
Those assets are illiquid, so if Trump loses the appeal, the process of turning them into cash could be difficult — perhaps even more so in a case centered around disputes over the value of Trump’s properties.
Habba did not immediately respond to CNBC’s questions about the appeal debt settlement process.
Engoro’s decision in Manhattan Supreme Court came weeks after a jury in a separate civil case in New York federal court ordered Trump to pay. 83.3 million dollars for libeling writer E. Jean Carroll. It’s on top of that 5 million dollars Trump has already been ordered to pay in a separate defamation case filed by Carroll.
After the case was heard, the former president took the unusual step of setting aside a $5.6 million cash deposit while continuing his appeal.
George Conway, a Trump critic and attorney, suggested that Trump would not be able to secure a third-party appeal. Trump’s lawyers denied this, saying he simply wanted to avoid additional payments by a bond company.
But as Trump’s legal penalties exceed half a billion dollars, Slarskey and others They predicted that Trump could announce soon bankruptcy.
This is how Forbes estimated Trump’s net worth about $2.6 billion until February.