Former president Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday asked for a 30-day extension on the due date to fulfill a $355 million payment emerging from last week’s verdict in his high-profile New York business-fraud case.
On Friday, Manhattan judge Arthur Engoron, a Democrat, served the $355 million verdict and an additional $100 million in pre-judgment interest to Trump and his companies over their allegedly fraudulent financial statements. Trump and his co-defendants, including his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, were found liable for inflating his net worth to receive lower interest rates. The court decision was issued without a jury and despite testimony from a Deutsche Bank official that the bank had done its own due diligence and that Trump was one of its “top ten clients . . . in terms of revenue generation.” Engoron also banned Trump from conducting business in New York for three years.
In Wednesday’s legal filing, attorneys for Trump requested that the New York State Supreme Court suspend enforcement of Engoron’s order for 30 days, “to allow for an orderly post-Judgment process, particularly given the magnitude of Judgment.” After the verdict goes into effect, Trump will have to submit the funds in one month’s time.
The lawyers also noted that New York attorney general Letitia James, who prosecuted the case against Trump after having campaigned for office on the promise that she’d target Trump, showed an “unseemly rush” to enforce the ruling.
This conduct, the lawyers said, “violates all accepted practice in New York state court.”
On Tuesday, James said she would be prepared to seize Trump’s business assets, such as his real estate properties, if he can’t pay the $355 million fine, touting the verdict as a debt owed to the residents of New York.
“If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James told ABC News on Tuesday. “We are prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid to New Yorkers, and yes, I look at 40 Wall Street each and every day.” The Trump Building in Lower Manhattan is located at that address.
Trump has vowed to appeal to reverse the case. New York Democratic governor Kathy Hochul last week tried to calm anxious residents about the financial implications of the decision, insisting that the three-year moratorium on Trump’s business activity in the state and his massive fine will not affect them.
“I think that this is really an extraordinary, unusual circumstance that the law-abiding and rule-following New Yorkers who are business people have nothing to worry about, because they’re very different than Donald Trump and his behavior,” Hochul told John Catsimatidis on The Cats Roundtable on WABC 770 AM.