Posted on 03/18/2024 2:54:43 PM PDT by NYer
Attorneys for former President Donald Trump urged a New York appeals court again on March 18 to remove or lower the $464 million bond President Trump must pay in less than a week as he tries to appeal a more than $350 million judgment from a civil fraud case.
“Enforcing an impossible bond requirement as a condition of appeal would inflict manifest irreparable injury on Defendants, and ‘defeat or impair [this Court’s] appellate jurisdiction,’” they argued.
The New York Attorney General’s office, which brought the civil fraud lawsuit, argued the appeals court had no authority to do so, while the defense pointed to other cases where it was found appropriate. The bond President Trump would have to put up would include backdated interest at 9 percent, adding another $100 million to the court ordered fine, which defense attorneys say has been improperly classified as disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.
They pointed out, as they had repeatedly, that the case named no victims, and therefore no one would be harmed in a delay of payment.
“The case involves no actual victims and no award of restitution, and [the attorney general] is fully protected by Defendants’ real-estate holdings. This factor alone warrants a stay,” the defense argued.
“The judgment seeks to destroy a successful business that employs many hardworking New Yorkers, has contributed approximately $300 million in taxes to public coffers just during the dates in question in this case, and has made historic contributions to the State and City of New York.”
Attorneys also revealed that 30 companies have already turned down the defense’s bond applications, attaching an affidavit from one of the brokers. A $454 million bond would require President Trump to have $1 billion in cash reserves, and four brokers have separate brokers have tried to obtain one so far to no avail.
After a 45-day bench trial, Justice Engoron had ruled for the plaintiffs on all claims, setting disgorgement at more than $350 million in line with the calculation an expert witness called by the state devised.
The judge had also put a ban on President Trump holding a director position in any financial or legal entity in the state for three years or taking out loans from any financial institution chartered in the state, and more limited bans for his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
Crucially, he extended the third-party monitorship of Trump Organization, with future reviews based on the monitor’s report for additional penalties including the extension of monitorship and even business certificate cancellations.
Defense attorneys argued the judgment was full of “manifold errors,” including the disregard of the statute of limitations set by the appeals court on both claims and disgorgement, the “ridiculously” valuing Mar-a-Lago between $18 million and $27 million, and “a massive disgorgement award in the absence of any evidence that misrepresentations caused the supposedly ill-gotten proceeds.”
“This case has no victims, no damages, and no actual financial losses,” the brief reads. Defendants argue that their business partners—including Deutsche Bank and the Zurich financial group—were “sophisticated” major financial institutions that testified they did their own analyses, were aware of the Trump Organization SFC disclaimers, and would not have changed the terms offered to Trump Organization “in light of the alleged ’misrepresentations’” in the SFCs as the attorney general presented at trial.
The massive figure is not an objective one; the state needed to tease out the portion of profit earned by Trump Organization that would have been a result only of inflated numbers presented on the SFCs.
The state presented an expert who created formulas to calculate the figure, and defense attorneys sought to show through their own expert testimonies that the profits were not “ill-gotten.”
In court filings, the defense also argued that several of these calculations relied on transactions that were outside of the statute of limitations, and faulted the trial court for allowing this. The attorney general had argued that the transactions were, under the continuing wrongs doctrine, distinct violations that each restarted the statute of limitations period, but the appeals court had previously found the doctrine did not apply to this case.
“The proper application of this Court’s previous ruling forecloses over 75 percent of the judgment,” the defense argued.
About $351 million of the disgorgement, after interest, falls outside the statute of limitations, the defense argued. This covers the loans for Trump National Doral Miami, Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point in New York, and Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago, all in 2012, as well as the Old Post Office building in Washington in 2013.
Yet even with the statute of limitations properly applied, the defense argues there was no show of causation that the alleged misrepresentations on the SFCs resulted in these specific gains.
The case was brought under Executive Law § 63(12) and the defense argued the statutes are “inapplicable to the facts of this case in the first place,” and was “wrongfully relied upon” by both the state attorneys and court. The defense attorneys blasted the attorney general for using cases that had no relation to the Executive Law § 63(12), including one involving attorney disbarment, to argue against a stay of penalties during appeal.
The appeals court had already temporarily stayed some of the nonmonetary penalties ordered, which the defense argued should continue throughout the appeal.
I never thought I would say this, but I’m beginning to hate this country.
Bingo!
Those are sequestered by a Federal court. A state court isn’t going to be able to go after those.
Eff her. Let her do it.
This is an excellent summary of the case and concerns at this point.
The whole thing needs to go away...quickly. There should be NO NEED for DJT to jump through any more hoops; in NYC, DC, or GA.
It’s all a political witch-hunt, and it has been, right from the start.
No, you actually hate the people who are destroying it.
Back in the 50s-70s things were a lot better. I do admit
it wasn’t for Blacks, but is better for them now.
The nation is being destroyed by the idiots out there right
now.
This Letitia James isn’t doing anything good for her people
right now. She’s a full-of-herself idiot. That judge is
also an enemy of the nation.
It's a lot worse than that. The people that supposedly love this country are unwilling to give up their paid TV subscription or the convenience of buying from the companies that are actively working against us.
What's worse, many of those same freedom loving, capitalist loving, communist loathing patriots supported sending our manufacturing, technology, and money to China, even AFTER they had stolen our military technology during the Clinton years. Absolutely no thought went into where their kids would work once all of the tech jobs were offshored. I know about the young adults with their worthless degrees in gender studies, but many others did what they were supposed to do. They got trained in the tech fields only to have those jobs offshored so their parents and grandparents could save a few pennies on communist made paint brushes, while they were left with part time jobs saying "Fries with that?" Now, our kids are rioting and taking tax bailouts instead of holding down those tech jobs, and we can't figure out why they're angry and rioting.
It's really hard to know who isn't destroying this country anymore.
Can another party, cover the fine?
Then why pay? Please explain.
I am pretty certain that not paying the deposit comes with legal penalties from the court like contempt.
I know that you’ve touched on some things that were decided
by our government and corporate officials. While it is the
duty of our citizens to remain awake and stop officials from
doing things that hurt our nation, we had folks they trusted
selling them out. Both parties bought into this S-sandwich
and led the people astray.
There were many people here who argued against my attempt to
ward off moving everything to China. They just couldn’t see
it.
They still don’t see it. Look at the photos of Chinese
cities 1980s vs 2020s. Then look at our own, all worn out
and literally nothing being improved upon.
It’s sad.
He already paid the bond to appeal that case. This is for the rat's claim he inflated property values.
It is sad, but thanks for trying.
No, the bond is to stay enforcement of the judgment. If he doesn’t post it then NY can begin seizing and attaching assets. No charges of contempt are involved. Have you read about this at all? 🙄🙄
“It would be cheaper to hire a couple of rogue biker gangs to “sort out” the problem with the New Jerk “legal” system people responsible for this clown show.”
The country is getting closer and closer to that. I’m surprised that veterans who fought for this country are no up in arms. But instead, I’m hearing the Dem’s talk that way about getting Trump.
If that happens, I’m afraid all hell would break loose. The cities would have no food shipped in and the tide would turn ugly.
The bond is for the purpose of staying enforcement of the judgment. If he can’t get one, NY can start attaching assets. No contempt involved, no jail sentence.
They are probably trying to hunt down some ancient law that says they can, just like they found some obscure law that made Trump guilty in the first place.
It won’t happen, he’s not going to jail over this.
“I wonder if Trump is holding the money back to force these scum to arrest him in handcuffs with their usual theatrics of FBI storm troopers which will disgust the America.”
If you understand the authority given to the Secret Service for its protectees, you would know that nobody, including a judge or separate law enforcement agents will lay hands on a Secret Service protectee.
You want to put Trump in jail? The Secret Service would assume absolute authority and control over any facility, down to employee access, contact and all food preparation.
They would rue the day they make that decision.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.