Trump posts reduced appeal bond in the N.Y. civil fraud case

[brooklynite]

Source: Axios

Former President Trump posted a $175 million bond on Monday to satisfy the judgment in his New York civil fraud case, a much smaller sum than the initial $454 million.

The big picture: The payment means the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee, who is facing a cash crunch as he fights his numerous legal cases, has likely avoided a worst-case scenario of frozen bank accounts and asset seizure.

A New York appeals court last week reduced the nearly half-billion-dollar bond and extended the deadline by 10 days.

The former president then signaled at the time that he would be able to post the new bond total.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2024/04/02/trump-deadline-appeal-bond?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_source=twitter

[gab13by13]

1. A Magat donor

[machoneman]

2. Collusion with the appellate judges! He worked the refs and he told THEM what to reduce the bond to. More bullshit!

[brooklynite]

3. I assume you have actual evidence implicating Democratic Judges?

[Wuddles440]

9. Although

there may not be any "evidence" of collusion, they certainly displayed extraordinary sympathy for his entreaties by dramatically reducing the bond to an amount proposed by his counsel.

[ripcord]

10. Or since they were liberals they simply applied the law

[Wuddles440]

13. The "law'...

did not dictate such a significant reduction.

[brooklynite]

12. The bond isn't intended as punishment. That's what the penalty he's still liable for is.

[Wuddles440]

14. But the bond is...

intended to insure that existing assets are preserved and not dissipated during the appeals process. Granting him an unprecedented 62% discount potentially compromises the eventual collectibility.

[onenote]

15. In most jurisdictions, the required bond amount is capped.

For example, in Florida, the maximum bond required for a stay pending appeal is $50 million, no matter how large the judgment being appealed.
Where bond isn't capped, courts, such as the one hearing Trump's case, have discretion to set the bond at a lower level.

Is the size of reduction 'unprecedented' -- I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if it wasn't.

[Diraven]

4. Hope they didn't take DJT stock

As collateral.

[niyad]

5. Where did the money come from?

[gab13by13]

6. Yup, you get it,

The money came from whoever got classified documents, take your pick; Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar.

Trump will never have to pay that money back.

[niyad]

7. I learned that Texas Towelie linked to a video that purports to

explain that the money came from a company calked Knight Insurance, owned by a sleaze who made his fortune in subprime auto loans. Of course, no real explanation for where the collateral comes from, despite the financial "expert" blithely assuring us that TRAITOR** has the money.

[moniss]

8. So now we have a piece of paper

from a sketchy source making a promise to pay. So should we be surprised when the "bond company" says "we don't have the actual money to make good on the promise made by the piece of paper? Which reminds me does anybody know if the lawyers for EJC filed any evaluation of the bond in that case? The judge gave them time to do so.

[onenote]

16. I'd be greatly surprised if the surety company didn't get collateral to cover the $175 million bond.

Indeed, the surety company has stated it got cash collateral from Trump.

[moniss]

17. The cash is with the surety comany

and is different than an escrow. Given the high dollar amounts I'm expecting that the legal wrangling over someone actually making good on the money won't be over the moment the appeals court rejects the appeal for example. You have to present the legal paperwork to the bond company to demand payment. As I've said before they can say no and force you into an additional legal fight, incurring more legal costs, to get it. That fight can go on for some time also.

My point being here that these people fight at a high level when the money is this big. I will be very surprised if, assuming the appeal is denied and not modified, that the parties involved are just going to say "OK here's your money". I can imagine there would be a discussion internally at the bond company about strategies to resist, drag their feet etc. legal strategies in order to keep as much of the asset for as long as possible.

Put another way would be like this. The Orange Ruski gave them $175 million in cash. They turned around and issued a piece of paper to the court saying they promise to pony that amount over if need be. But if they can delay handing it over for a couple of years that $175 million has been "working and earning" to help their bottom line for that extra amount of time. It would be a matter of running the numbers to see what their costs for delay will be versus the benefits.

[onenote]

18. I'm curious. Have you seen the bond agreement?

[moniss]

19. We don't know

the weirdness that could be in it yet and yesterday I raised the question of whether we have heard anything from the lawyers for EJC regarding that bond agreement because their was apparently enough to concern the judge that he gave them time to review and comment about the agreement and sufficiency. I haven't heard whether they have responded.

A very curious thing to me is the idea of doing a bond for the $175 million when you have to put up all cash for it. I see no apparent advantage on the face of it. Why not just give the court the $175 million directly? Almost any bond is going to carry a premium of at least 1% given this face amount. So why put up $175 million in cash and incur a cost of $1.75 million, or more, for a premium rather than just give the court the cash and avoid the premium? I don't see the advantage. Unless there is hook and crook here. Such as "lending back" money.

In that scenario he gives the bonding company the $175 million plus the premium and one of the affiliated companies to the bond company make a loan back to the Orange Ruski on a property deal etc. so he in effect actually "exchanges" the cash for a different financial obligation that still allows him to ride on the cash flow. Sort of the Popeye and Wimpy principle.

[onenote]

20. the Carroll bond agreement was accepted by Carroll and approved by the Judge almost three weeks ago

See:https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790.324.0.pdf

And:https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790.329.0.pdf

And:https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790.329.0.pdf

As for why a party would obtain an appeal bond from a surety with cash as collateral rather than simply pay the cash bond amount directly to the court -- courts generally do not pay interest on amounts received as an appeal bond, but surety companies often do pay interest on that amount. These days, the interest could easily exceed the bond premium.

Surety companies are regulated as insurance companies at the state level and, for some purposes, the federal level. They aren't going to ignore the terms of their obligations under the surety agreement by dragging out payment, if Trump loses his appeal, of the bonded amount.

[moniss]

21. There are lots of examples

of crooked financial companies despite being "regulated". We have no indication of bond terms to know about any interest component. The originally submitted bond appears to have been deemed unsatisfactory by either the court or the lawyers for EJC because the payment/notifications time frame was altered by the rider a week later to reduce that time frame from 30 days to 15 days.

On the subject of dragging out payment I would note that the bond language states that, post appeal, the principal has the opportunity to pay the amount of the judgement and the bond is then withdrawn. It further states that if the principal has not fully paid then the bond will pay. This is where I have previously pointed out one way that problems can come in to drag things out.

For example lets say that the appeal is denied and the judgement amount is not modified. So the defendant goes to the plaintiff with, in this case, $40 million in cash and title to some properties that the defendant claims makes up the other $50 million plus. But the plaintiff rejects this because they dispute the value of the properties and goes to now claim on the bond. The defendant immediately files a motion in court objecting to the claim on the bond and rejection of the valuation of the properties. So now all of this gets a stay placed on the collection of the bond while it is all litigated and appealed. It could be years.

I would note that the bond terms/judgement are silent about type of payment. I would say that in almost all cases it would not be a problem that would require specificity but with this defendant and his history I would nail it down in writing that it is to be paid entirely by a transfer of US currency funds.

[republianmushroom]

11. He has played this well.

My bet was he would pay the bond.

[FakeNoose]

22. He's going to lose this appeal, and he's going to owe the full amount

Maybe the NYS Appellate Court might make a small adjustment on the total. I don't know. Maybe they'll forgive him the interest or something. But Chump is going to pay the State of New York.

He has no chance of winning the November election. But even so the outcome of the election doesn't affect this ruling anyway. I wish people would calm down and just be patient while this plays out. If he croaks in the meantime, so what? The state has first dibs on his estate before the kiddies get anything.