A New York appeals court on Monday reduced former President Donald Trump‘s civil fraud judgment to $175 million and granted a 10-day delay for him to pay the reduced bond.
The appeals court’s decision came on the same day that the grace period for Trump to pay his $464 million civil fraud trial judgment from February was set to expire. The order marks a significant victory for the former president, who was facing the prospect of Democratic Attorney General Letitia James beginning to seize his assets as soon as Monday had the appeals court not intervened.
Trump previously asked the appeals court to pause the $464 million judgment against him or be willing to accept a bond of only $100 million, and the appeals court appears to have granted the former president a major lifeline with its order on Monday.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay nearly $355 million in penalties, plus interest, in the civil fraud case that dealt a remarkable blow to his family business empire, the Trump Organization. Last week, Trump’s attorneys said he could not secure the full $464 million bond.
The appeals court on Monday also paused the enforcement of other penalties, such as those barring Trump and top executives from serving in leadership roles in their Empire State business for several years.
If Trump posts the $175 million bond in time, James will have to wait to seize any Trump assets until after the appeal is resolved.
Earlier this month, James filed judgments in Westchester County, where Trump’s golf resort and a private 212-acre estate are located, which marked the first step toward seizing the properties.
Meanwhile, Trump was in New York criminal court Monday for a hearing in his separate criminal hush money case in which a judge is weighing his lawyers’ complaints that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York’s recent dump of more than 100,000 pages of filings should justify a 90-day delay of the trial. The trial was initially slated to begin on Monday before Justice Juan Merchan delayed the trial to mid-April at the earliest.
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Merchan could decide Monday when the hush money trial will begin and whether to impose a narrow gag order on the former president at the request of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the Democratic prosecutor who brought the 34-count indictment.
This is a developing story and will be updated.