A federal judge has denied Donald Trump's effort to delay enforcement of an $83 million jury award against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, with the former president left with just three days to raise the cash or post bond.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled against Trump's effort to push off the enforcement deadline, while the former president faces an even more staggering sum following a judge's order against him in his Manhattan fraud case.
That boosts the staggering pressure on Trump to line up an acceptable bond during his expected appeal.
Kaplan said Trump had only himself to blame.
'Mr. Trump's current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions,' he wrote Thursday. '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 ... to file his prior motion for an unsecured or partially secured stay pending resolution of post-trial motions.'
The legal and financial challenge comes just a day after Trump cleared his last major challenger to the Republican presidential nomination when Nikki Haley dropped out of the race.
The financial penalties against him pending appeals in the pair of civil cases present Trump's most immediate legal challenge against Trump, after the Supreme Court's intervention in his January 6 case raised the prospect it could get delayed until after the election, and his criminal prosecution in Georgia was up in the air following stunning revelations about a 'romantic relationship' Fulton County DA Fani Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.
Trump faces a staggering order to pay $464 million in penalties in interest in his New York fraud case, a sum Trump appears unable to raise after his lawyers offered to provide less than one-quarter of the amount.
Trump's lawyers called that fine 'exorbitant and punitive' and persuaded a judge to back down from lending restrictions.
'The exorbitant and punitive amount of the Judgment coupled with an unlawful and unconstitutional blanket prohibition on lending transactions would make it impossible to secure and post a complete bond,' his team wrote in filing to Judge Arthur Engoron.
In the Jan. 26 verdict in the Carroll case, jurors agreed with the writer, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, that Trump had defamed her in June 2019 by denying he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Kaplan made the verdict official on Feb. 8, and gave Trump 30 days to post a bond or come up with cash during his appeal, which is expected to challenge the jury's finding of liability and the amount of damages.
Trump had sought to delay enforcement of the verdict until the judge ruled on his motions to throw it out, which he filed on Tuesday.
But the judge said Trump should not have waited 25 days after the verdict before seeking a delay.
He also said Trump failed to show how he might suffer 'irreparable injury' if required to post a bond.
'Mr. Trump's current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions,' the judge wrote.
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