This is the best summary I could come up with:
The judge who presided over a civil business fraud trial against Donald Trump and his company has issued his decision in the case.
The former president could also face four criminal trials this year as his presidential campaign barrels toward the November election, with the first set to begin in New York state court on March 25th.
James contended the defendants used the inflated financial statements to obtain bank loans and insurance policies at rates he otherwise wouldn’t have been entitled to and “reaped hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.”
Trump had also fraudulently puffed up the value of the property by saying it was a private residence, despite having signed an agreement that it could only be used as a social club to lower his tax burden.
James filed a suit seeking $250 million in damages from Trump in 2022, and the judge appointed a monitor to oversee the company’s finances that November.
In a summary judgment ruling the week before the trial started, Engoron found Trump and his executives had repeatedly engaged in fraud.
The original article contains 809 words, the summary contains 177 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Only a 3 year ban… interesting.
Hope long will it be tied up in appeals, 3 years?
A while, I’m sure. The thing is, to appeal a ruling you have to be able to show that some part of the process wasn’t within the letter of the law. Trying to appeal will certainly buy some time, but not much if the attempt is unsuccessful. Given the wealth of evidence against the organization, I wouldn’t think the appeal will be successful.
This will ultimately be what does him in. He can play legal games for years with ease, but the moment he’s forced to pony up actual hard cash his house of cards will collapse. Best case scenario for him right now is that he can dip into the GOP’s finances to pay this fine, although if he does so that’s opening up yet another can of worms that’s likely to come back and bite him. No bank is going to loan him money, and his supporters collectively don’t have enough cash to cover that fee even if he could convince them to send him even more money.
Any more judgements like this one and he’s going to have to start seriously liquidating assets and with how leveraged most of them probably are even that’s going to net him a lot less actual cash than it might seem like. There’s a reason he grifts so hard and it’s not because he’s so amazingly successful.
Jean Carrol case he needs to put down the money to appeal, is it not the same here?
He can technically appeal anyway, but he has very limited options.
If he pays in 30 days and appeals AND if the appeals court hears the case, then the money will be held by the court and then he can request that they stay the judgment, AND if they agree money is returned (but he can still lose and have to pay again).
If it goes to appeals and they don’t stay judgement then if he wins it also gets paid back. Or if he loses then the government claims it, of course.
If he don’t pay in 30 days then the government can start seizing assets and auction them off EVEN IF he appeals, which absolutely would be horrible for him. If he won on appeal after that he’d get compensated for it, but not without collateral damage due to his complete lack of control over what assets to keep or sell.
In New York State you have to front 110% of the money before you can appeal. So he would have to front $390M just to file the appeal.
His whole 2016 campaign raised $330M for context.
He’s also on record under oath saying he has $400M cash on hand meaning if he doesn’t actually have the cash on hand he perjured himself as well.
He would likely do this by buying a bond. It would be substantial though, and even if he won the appeal the bond would like cost like $35 million or something he would never get back, and he needs to pay that before the appeal. It’s all money being sapped away from the republican party at least.
He can just get a loan from Saudi Arabia. $400 million ain’t shit to MBS.
He would likely do this by buying a bond.
In the $5 million E. Jean Carroll case, Trump paid the $5 million in cash on appeal. He claimed it was to avoid the fees of buying a bond but some have argued that no bond lenders would agree to lend to Trump due to the risk of not being paid back. If that’s the case, Trump is going to be fronting a lot of cash in a short amount of time. Even a billionaire doesn’t want $400 million tied up in escrow accounts.
He’s barred from using any banks or other financial institutions registered in New York to do it, which includes pretty much all banks operating in USA which may have enough funds available to issue it. So if he doesn’t have the cash on hand then he absolutely need to start begging private financiers to help him
Considering that business was basically run by his children for a while it’s extremely disappointing to see them excluded from the judgement.
Both boys have to pay $4m and can’t run NY businesses for 3 years. Not nothing - although I did not see anything about Ivanka.
They’re also “jointly and severally liable” for the major amounts of cash, I have no idea what that means though.
It means they can pay jointly, but each is liable for the whole amount.
As in, if Trump claims to be broke, either son could be forced to pay whatever is outstanding, they can’t limit their liability to one third.
Eric and Don Jr. each got a 2-year ban, it looks like.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/16/trump-fraud-trial-judge-engoron-verdict-ny-ag-business-case.html
One, the kids are also barred for a period of time.
Two, the big kicker is:
He also continued “the appointment of an Independent Monitor” and ordered “the installation of an Independent Director of Compliance” for the company
There is going to be eyes and ears on everything Trump attempts to do to weasel money around, especially given how often Trump shifts funds illegally to maintain his grift. That monitor is absolutely going to be dragging Trump back into court sooner or later. The man knows no restraint, he’s absolutely going to FAFO.
$354 million here…
$83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll
$5 million on the first E. Jean Carroll case…
So $442,300,000 - Yow!
It might be closer to 450 then 354 due to interest https://mastodon.social/@GottaLaff/111943052849383387
