Donald Trump posted a $175 million bond on Monday in his New York civil fraud case, halting collection of the more than $454 million he owes and preventing the state from seizing his assets to satisfy the debt while he appeals, according to a court filing.
A New York appellate court had given the former president 10 days to put up the money after a panel of judges agreed last month to slash the amount needed to stop the clock on enforcement.
The bond Trump is posting with the court now is essentially a placeholder, meant to guarantee payment if the judgment is upheld. If that happens, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will have to pay the state the whole sum, which grows with daily interest.
If Trump wins, he won’t have to pay the state anything and will get back the money he has put up now.
About the rule of law? Obviously not you.
You want a specific action taken because you don’t like the person involved. Congratulations, you can replace Alito and Thomas when they get off the court. You are fine with changing the law to hurt the people you don’t like.
I on the other hand would prefer to preserve the rule of law. There are absolutely no downsides for the action taken by the appeals court, Trump posted $175 million Bond and the properties that they would have seized are still there to be seized in the future if necessary.
If the state levy and sells those properties, it is going to be a nightmare to try and unwind if the appeal were successful. In the meantime, if Trump did somehow sell those properties it would be a fraudulent conveyance, and those sales would be overturned. Other than hating Donald Trump (and I’m with you), there is no downside to this, but I’m not willing to destroy our legal system for him.
The specific action is the standard action in fraud cases. That is caring about the rule of law. You excuse going soft on somebody who committed record breaking levels of fraud because treating him the same as the standard is hard.
If the properties can’t get the amount they are claimed to be worth, then they are not worth that much. That is why Trump is having problems getting the bond, because he lied about the value of his properties.
Ther is a massive downside, which is rewarding fraud, both by only having a punishment equal to the fraud and also going easy the bigger the fraud is. That just incentivises more fraud, just like giving rideshares a free pass for bypassing laws that apply to cabs and short term rentals for avoiding lawd that apply to hotels encourages those industries.
I’m not trying to be rude, but it really sounds like you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Have you ever been involved in levying and selling real property? Do you think that process ever nets fair market value? Most times you don’t get 50 cents on the dollar.
Again, this has no bearing on the current case. No one is rewarding fraud and no one is going easy. The court didn’t reduce the judgment, the court didn’t reduce the interest, all the court did was reduce the amount of bond that had to be posted. If you had some way in which the state of New York was materially disadvantaged by this action, you would have brought it up by now. You don’t.
In fact, this might actually work out better for them, because at least now they have $175 million in cash to satisfy a portion of the judgment. As difficult as it can be to litigate a civil action, I think every attorney will tell you that it’s often much more difficult to find, levy, and sell assets to satisfy the judgment. If the assets are in another jurisdiction then you have to domesticate your judgment, some states make that simple, some states make that fairly difficult.
You also indicated that this is “record breaking levels of fraud”, whatever that means, but advocate for the “standard action and fraud cases”. Perhaps such a record-breaking event should warrant actions other than the standard. But that concept would require thought, so don’t worry about it.
If you think property worth is more than what people will pay for them, then you are doing what Trump was found guilty of doing.
At some point you’re going to stop proving how ignorant you are, right?
Listing a property with a broker on the open market is going to get you fair market value. Levying and selling that same property is an entirely different process and is going to net you far less money, usually closer to fifty cents on the dollar. No fraud involved.