Former President Donald Trump posted a $91.6 million bond in a defamation case as he appeals the amount awarded to plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, according to court documents filed on March 8.
President Trump, along with the Federal Insurance Company, said in the bond filing that they “bind ourselves” to the payment. President Trump signed the document.
Federal Insurance Company is based in Virginia but is authorized to do business in New York, according to one of the newly filed documents.
Alina Habba, one of the former president’s attorneys, said in another document that President Trump had obtained the supersedeas bond from the company.
That type of bond is usually required during appeals of civil judgments, according to the Court Surety Bond Agency.
The filings were made in federal court in New York, where a jury in January said President Trump must pay $83.3 million in damages for the defamation.
Lawyers for the former president asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the case, to approve the bond while asking for a stay of the execution of the judgment pending the outcome of the appeal.
“Approval of the bond by this court is requisite to formalize the stay of enforcement, as the bond secures President Trump’s monetary obligations under the judgment and serves as a guarantee for the satisfaction of the same, should the appeal not prove meritorious,” Ms. Habba wrote.
“President Trump respectfully requests that this court recognize the supersedeas bond obtained by President Trump in the sum of $91,630,000.00 and approve it as adequate and sufficient to stay the enforcement of the judgment, to the extent that the judgment awards damages, pending the ultimate disposition of President Trump’s appeal.”
If an appeal is successful, then the bond “shall be null, void, released, and discharged,” one filing states.
“Due to the numerous prejudicial errors made at the lower level, we are highly confident that the Second Circuit will overturn this egregious judgment,” Ms. Habba said in a statement.
The bond was filed one day after Judge Kaplan rejected a request by Alina Habba, one of the former president’s attorneys, to allow President Trump not to post bond yet.
“Requiring President Trump to post a bond or other security before this court’s ruling on his stay motion threatens to impose irreparable injury in the form of substantial costs (which may or may not be recoverable),” Ms. Habba wrote in the request.
Judge Kaplan said that the situation is a result of President Trump’s actions following Jan. 26, when the jury returned the award against him, particularly his delayed choice to ask for a stay.
“He has had since January 26 to organize his finances with the knowledge that he might need to bond this judgment, yet he waited until 25 days after the jury verdict—and only shortly before the expiration of Rule 62’s automatic 30-day stay of judgment—to file his prior motion for an unsecured or partially secured stay pending resolution of post-trial motions,” she said in her Thursday order.
Rule 62 is a federal rule that stays execution of a judgment for 30 days once a party provides bond.
“The expense of ongoing litigation in the absence of a stay does not constitute ‘irreparable injury’ in the relevant sense of that term,” the judge added. “Nor has Mr. Trump made any showing of what expenses he might incur if required to post a bond or other security, on what terms (if any) he could obtain a conventional bond, or post cash or other assets to secure payment of the judgment, or any other circumstances relevant to the situation. Accordingly, his present application for a temporary administrative stay is denied.”
The jury awarded Ms. Carroll damages after Judge Kaplan found that President Trump defamed Ms. Carroll. The jury said several statements President Trump made in 2019 about Ms. Carroll, including one in which he accused Ms. Carroll of inventing an accusation of sexual assault against him, were made maliciously, out of hatred, or ill will, or “in wanton, reckless, or willful disregard of Ms. Carroll’s rights.”
The verdict came after another jury said in a civil case that President Trump sexually assaulted Ms. Carroll, a magazine columnist, despite her initially being unable to describe in which year the alleged act took place.
The jury in the defamation case awarded Ms. Carroll $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages.
The amount President Trump posted is 110 percent of the total.
President Trump also has a deadline in another civil case, brought by New York’s attorney general, to pay $454 million.
“I don’t worry about anything. I don’t worry about the money. I don’t worry about money,” President Trump said recently on Fox & Friends.
His net worth is estimated to be $2.6 billion.
From The Epoch Times