A New York appeals court ruled former President Trump must post a bond of $175 million to appeal a $454 million civil fraud judgment.
NY Attorney General Letitia James set a Monday deadline for Trump to post a $454 million bond or she would begin seizing his assets, including Trump Tower.
However, on Monday, five appellate court judges ruled the bond was excessively high.
The appeals judges handed down a $175 million bond — and gave Trump an additional 10 days to pay it.
In February, a NY court found Trump misled his lenders by overinflating the value of his assets. The trial judge said Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida – which is worth hundreds of millions – was worth only $18 million.
The $454 million penalty was the sum total of the interest Trump received by misleading his lenders, according to the NY judge.
In addition to the financial penalty, Trump is banned from conducting business in New York for three years, and he can’t obtain a loan from a New York bank.
The same also applies to Trump’s adult sons.
Trump plans to appeal the verdicts.
Trump’s son, Eric, said banks laughed in his face when he attempted to secure a $454 million bond for his father last week.
“This is ‘lawfare,'” Eric Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday.
“They want to hurt my father, who’s winning the presidential race right now. He’s beating Biden in every single poll in every single swing state. He came out and said he wants to put hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money into his campaign.”
“And, how do they deprive him of that?” Eric continued. “They have come up with an astronomical number, give you zero time to post a bond, a bond that’s not even commercially available in the United States. It’s not — no one’s ever seen a bond this size.”
