Donald Trump paid a bail of 175 million dollars this Monday to postpone the payment of the total of 454 that he owes to New York after the sentence for civil fraud with his real estate empire. With the payment of this money, provided by the Knight Insurance company, he prevents the state from seizing his assets before the deadline set, this Thursday. An appeals court agreed last week to give Trump a ten-day window to post a portion of the bail while his litigation continues, as his attorneys declared the total amount "practically unpayable" given his financial situation.
Judge Arthur Engoron in February sentenced the magnate to pay $454 million for having inflated his assets for a decade to obtain better loans from banks and insurers. He agreed with Attorney General Letitia James, who led the prosecution and estimated the asset revaluations at $2 billion. The sentence also prohibits him and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric – who must also pay 4 million each – from holding senior positions in any company in the state, including his family business.
The Republican candidate has turned to the California-based company Knight Specialty Insurance to provide his bond, which is not an actual transfer, but rather a legal document that promises to cover it if Trump loses his appeal. The details of this agreement are private, but they save the former president from a delicate financial situation for the moment.
If he had not paid within the ten-day period granted by the court, prosecutor James could have frozen his bank accounts and potentially seized some of his most iconic properties, such as The Trump Building, at 40 Wall Street. Street. Precisely, this was one of the assets whose value he inflated and for which he was convicted: in 2012 it was valued at 220 million and the family business valued it at 530 million.
Although he has a net worth in the billions of dollars, it comes mostly from real estate, which bail bond companies do not typically accept as collateral. The New York Times estimated in a recent analysis that Trump has just over $350 million in cash, insufficient to pay the full fine.
In addition, the magnate recently posted another bail of 91.6 million for the defamation conviction of the writer E. Jean Carroll in New York. Trump was already convicted last May for having sexually abused the victim almost three decades ago, he denied the facts after she publicly denounced him and for years encouraged the lynching of his followers through social networks. Carroll sued for defamation and finally a civil jury in the Southern District of New York estimated the damages at 91.6 million and forced him to pay said compensation.
The part of the bail paid this Monday for the fraud conviction gives a short respite to Trump, who faces an intense judicial year with four criminal charges in New York, Washington, Georgia and Florida. The first trial begins in two weeks, on April 15, for the case of document falsification in the bribery of porn actress Stormey Daniels, with whom a relationship they had maintained ten years before was silenced in the middle of the campaign. And the expense of his defense, which he is paying for in part thanks to donations from his followers, adds to the immense expense of a seven-month electoral campaign until the presidential elections on November 5.
