Letitia James says she's prepared to seize Trump's buildings if he can't pay his $354M civil fraud fine

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 414 points – Letitia James says she's prepared to seize Trump's buildings if he can't pay his $354M civil fraud fine
abcnews.go.com

The New York attorney general made the remarks in an interview with ABC News.

Four days after a judge ordered former President Donald Trump to pay $354 million in his civil fraud case, New York Attorney General Letitia James told ABC News that she is prepared to seize the former president's assets if he is unable to find the cash to cover the fine.

"If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets," James said in an interview with ABC News' Aaron Katersky.

Trump was fined $354.8 million plus approximately $100 million in pre-judgment interest on Friday after Judge Arthur Engoron determined that he inflated his net worth in order get more favorable loan terms.

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Is there any ready estimate of the worth of those buildings?

It depends who you ask. Or who’s asking. If it’s a bank asking trump, they’re worth billions. If it’s the IRS asking trump, they’re worthless dumps.

But when the taxman come to the door

Lord, the house lookin' like a rummage sale, yeah

It doesn't really matter, because the value would be litigated no matter what the number is. It'll end up with a court-appointed third-party appraisal.

I'm assuming she won't be able to actually do this until the appeal finishes, right?

IIRC, he must put the money in escrow to file the appeal.

He can use a bond for the escrow -- it's a lower cost to him, but he doesn't get that money back no matter the result.

Who's going to bond someone that never pays their bills? Trump has to scraping the bottom of his personal liquid money.

Anyone? Bonds work by paying the amount up front.

Commonly, 10% of a bond is required up-front. Trump’s total liability in this case is closer to $450 million, so he will need to front approximately $45 million in cash to obtain a bond. Most reputable news outlets estimate he has this in liquid assets.

However, collateral covering the full liability of the judgment is required to secure the bond. Speculation is that several of his properties will be required collateral.

Trump may try to secure collateral through other means such as capturing RNC or PAC funds, taking his social disinformation network public, etc.

I’m looking forward to watching it play out. The civil trials have partially resorted my faith in the rule of law. The criminal cases will determine if Trump can put himself above the rule of law. A successful presidential election, or the Supreme Court granting him “absolute immunity” and I doubt anyone is seeing a dime of the civil judgements against him.

I'm gonna hold off on him actually paying before I get too excited about rule of law.

Him being found liable is certainly better than the alternative.

Neither will any lender ever get their money back if they agree to it.

The tweets on this are maddening. I saw one literally say "what she is doing is criminal" and I screamed in my head. Literally the opposite!

And let alone the tweets about truckers abandoning NYC or whatever, I saw one person claim lefties are trying to get self-employed truckers fired which is (as far as I can tell) fan fiction. Like maybe people are getting taken off contracts that deliver to NYC if they refuse to go to NYC but that's...exactly what they want, right? What an infuriating mess.

NYC does not care about the handful of people so upset that Trump got found guilty of the fraud he committed, that they are willing to harm their own work interests.

Letitia is in the running for "Hard Nosed Prospector 2024", but Jack hasn't gotten in the game yet.