"Trump owes this money because he fraudulently misrepresented the value of his assets—and now (oops) apparently no one will accept those assets as collateral."

Less than a month after New York Attorney General Letitia James said she would be willing to seize former Republican President Donald Trump’s assets if he is unable to pay the $464 million required by last month’s judgment in his civil fraud case, Trump’s lawyers disclosed in court filings Monday that he had failed to secure a bond for the amount.

In the nearly 5,000-page filing, lawyers for Trump said it has proven a “practical impossibility” for Trump to secure a bond from any financial institutions in the state, as “about 30 surety companies” have refused to accept assets including real estate as collateral and have demanded cash and other liquid assets instead.

To get the institutions to agree to cover that $464 million judgment if Trump loses his appeal and fails to pay the state, he would have to pledge more than $550 million as collateral—“a sum he simply does not have,” reportedThe New York Times, despite his frequent boasting of his wealth and business prowess.

  • Tyfud@lemmy.world
    6·
    8 months ago

    You don’t have the option of looking at a court judgement like an investment opportunity. This is a legal judgement. You don’t get to “hold onto cash” just because not having it would risk exposure or something.

    You do this, or they start selling your assets off for an unflattering amount of money, and/or you can go to jail, or have all of the things you owned possessed and auctioned off to pay for the judgement.

    The thing you don’t get to do is not pay.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      3·
      8 months ago

      This isn’t about him paying his legal bill, it’s about a bond to appeal.

      Using all your cash to appeal is a bad idea for ANYONE

      if you lose the appeal, you can then decide on your cash and asset mix to pay it off.

      Edit: think about it this way. If you can put up asset collateral on a appeal that’ll take a year, that’s a whole year you could be earning interest on the cash and have cash for an emergency. Maybe you go half and half so you don’t risk as much of the other assets. Leaving yourself with no cash is just bad. He’s in a really bad situation so maybe he only has bad options, but that doesn’t mean it’s not bad.