Former President Donald Trump has posted a $175 million bond in the New York civil fraud case, preventing seizure of his assets while the case is under appeal.
A state appeals court ruled last week that Trump and his co-defendants had 10 days to post the amount, which was reduced from the $464 million judgment that was originally due March 25.
Before last week’s ruling, Trump was liable for $454 million, most of the fraud judgment, but the amount he owed had been growing by more than $111,000 daily because of added interest.
Trump attorney Alina Habba said Monday that he would be vindicated on appeal.
“As promised, President Trump has posted bond. He looks forward to vindicating his rights on appeal and overturning this unjust verdict,” Habba said in a statement.
If Trump doesn’t win on appeal, he will have to pay more than $450 million from a judgment stemming from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ fraud case. A judge found that Trump and top executives at the Trump Organization had intentionally engaged in a scheme to improperly inflate his assets in financial statements that enabled him to claim favorable loan and insurance rates he wasn’t entitled to.
Knight Specialty Insurance Co., the entity that underwrote Trump’s bond, is part of a group of companies run by Los Angeles-based billionaire Don Hankey, who is No. 128 on the 2023 Forbes 400 list and No. 317 on the 2023 Forbes billionaires list.
Hankey has been an investor in Axos Bank, the financial institution that refinanced Trump’s loans on Trump Tower and Trump National Doral Miami in 2022. Axos has lent Trump $100 million in his refinancing of Trump Tower and $125 million more for Doral. Neither loan is due until 2032, according to the Office of Government Ethics disclosure Trump submitted in August.
Trump is also appealing another verdict in New York after a jury there awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages in January stemming from her defamation lawsuit against him. A federal judge last month approved Trump’s $91.63 million bond in that case during the appeals process.
In a post to Truth Social on Monday night, Trump acknowledged the $175 million bond, as well as the $91 million one for the E. Jean Carroll case. He criticized the judge in the civil fraud case, without naming him, along with James and New York’s crime rate.
Trump also referred to the bond payments as “money I can’t use on my campaign. Just what Crooked Joe wanted.”
Trump is set to go to trial this month in the Manhattan district attorney’s hush money case against him. The trial is scheduled to begin April 15.
He also faces charges in three other criminal cases, including the alleged willful retention of classified documents and accusations of election interference at the state and federal levels. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
