08 March 2024 , 16:12
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Facing a looming deadline less than three days away, former President Donald Trump caved and paid the $91.6 million (approximately £71 million) bond he owed in the defamation suit he lost against writer E. Jean Carroll in late January.
A court document obtained by The Hill shows a statement written by Trump's lawyer Alina Habba, who represented him throughout the trial. It reads: "President Trump respectfully requests that this Court recognize the supersedeas bond obtained by President Trump in the sum of $91,630,000.00 and approve it as adequate and sufficient to stay the enforcement of the Judgment, to the extent that the Judgment awards damages, pending the ultimate disposition of President Trump’s appeal."
The Associated Press reported that the $91.6 million was part of a bond he secured from the Federal Insurance Co., which means the $8 million could be interest. It was reportedly just a bond payment, too, not the actual $83.3 million amount he still owes to Carroll but that is being appealed — with another appeal filed by Habba the same day the payment was made. He had to pay the bond before the appeal case could begin.
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E. Jean Carroll was awarded $83.3 million in the suit she won against Trump in late January (Getty Images)Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million to the columnist, who accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. She then accused him of defaming her after several derogatory comments he made about her, which accused her of lying.
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Trump's payment comes a mere day after Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who oversaw the defamation suit, denied Trump's request to delay his payment deadline so he could secure a loan that would help him pay the hefty sum.
He told Trump's legal team that he wouldn't delay any deadlines that would prevent 80-year-old Carroll from being awarded the money she is owed, especially if the appeals Trump is currently making to overturn the verdict are unsuccessful. He also said any financial harm caused to Trump would be the result of his slow response to pay up after the verdict came down in late January.
"Mr. Trump's current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions," Kaplan wrote. Trump's legal team waited 25 days after the verdict to appeal for a delay. The judgment in the case becomes final on Monday.
Trump was angry at the verdict and vowed to appeal it, and he has been trying to do so (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)Trump's team had challenged the ruling, stating that $65 million in punitive damages awarded to Carroll was excessive. The lawyers said there is a "strong possibility" that the amount would be reduced or completely eliminated once they appealed. It hasn't been.
The rape Carroll accused Trump of allegedly occurred in a Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan in the spring of 1996. There was a separate trial related to that claim, and Trump was ordered to pay $5 million to Carroll in damages. A jury found that Trump had sexually abused her — but that he hadn't raped her, as the term was defined at the time (in 2019) under New York State law.
That law has since been changed, meaning that rape now constitutes much more than just vaginal penetration by a penis — it includes all kinds of nonconsensual sex, PBS News Hour reported.
He was then found guilty of defaming her in late January after comments he made while in office as president in 2019, stating that she was lying and that she was using her lies to sell books.
E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in 1996, then of defaming her in the late 2010s and through the trial that culminated in January (Getty Images)Ultimately, Kaplan ruled against Trump's legal team as they appealed the large sum ordered in the defamation suit because he said it does not, as Trump's lawyers said, "impose irreparable injury in the form of substantial costs."
The former president has found himself in a rather nasty financial bind amid several recently concluded and pending legal suits, including four major criminal indictments — three federal and one at the state level — that accuse him of 91 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, insurrectionism and election fraud.
In his civil fraud trial, which also played out in Manhattan, the businessman was accused of grossly inflating his net worth by several billion dollars in order to secure better deals and loans related to the real estate holdings he and his company, the Trump Organization, hold in New York City and across the state.
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Brought forth by New York Attorney General Letitia James, the suit also indicted Trump's sons, Donald Jr and Eric, who were and still are key players in the Trump Organization. His daughter, Ivanka, was also indicted, but a statute of limitations loophole ended up allowing her dismissal from the case as it was also argued that, at the time most of the shady dealings were happening, she was getting ready to help her father by serving as one of his White House advisers in early 2017.
In that case, Trump was ultimately ordered to pay $454 million in penalties. He has been struggling to pay that amount, and the large sum he paid on Friday didn't exactly help with that. And daily interest accruing at a rate of $112,000 each day on that sum isn't helping, either.
He also faces immense legal fees for the four indictments and is struggling to fund his presidential campaign ahead of the November elections, when he hopes to win a second term in the Oval Office.
Just last week, he was seen meeting with tech mogul and billionaire Elon Musk at his Mar-a-Lago estate, ironically also the site at which he was accused of illegally storing classified documents in a shower — the subject of one of the indictments. It is believed that he was lobbying Musk for funds for his campaign.
The tech mogul has been known to donate to campaigns on both sides of the aisle, having given money to both former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. This year, he seems to have fallen in with the far-right Republican camp, constantly bashing President Joe Biden, by whom he feels scorned after the Democrat didn't invite his company Tesla to an electric vehicle summit in 2022.
In any case, Trump desperately needs cash if he hopes to not only win the 2024 election but also foot the massive legal bills he faces across at least six cases in the coming months. Friday's payment served as a massive blow to the businessman.