An unsuccessful defendant who wants to stop collection a judgment's enforcement for he duration of an appeal is generally allowed to halt enforcement by posting a supersedeaas bond, which assures the court that delay won't prejudice collection because the amount due is available to pay the winner if the appeal fails. The bond isn't required to pursue the appeal, just to halt enforcement. Concerns about how fair this procedure is can appreciate the problem best by considering the alternative: should an aggrieved public bear the risk of delay and the possibility that deception or other creditors render a defendant judgment-proof during appeal? The bond is the compromise.
Lat month Mr. Trump induced the major insurer Chubb to underwrite the supersedeas bond to stay execution of a January judgment for his longtime defamation victim E. Jean Carroll. Chubb's CEO gave interviews explaining its position had been fully secured and that its terms with Trump were no special favor: the terms were meant to earn a return for investors. The bond was less than a hundred million dollars.
Donald J. Trump is no stranger to the courts, but he's no longer allowed to harm victims with impunity as when he bullied suppliers out of payment when he was setting up his long-failed casino in Atlantic City. the economic impact of his lies has grown. He's being sued, and successfully, in the communities upon which he's preyed. Now Mr. trump hopes to forestall execution of New York's judgment, awarded when New York proved that Mr. Trump and his co-defendants fraudulently misrepresented assets and collateral to obtain loan terms and outsized profits not available in the market. Disgorgement of profit from fraud in this one New York case amounts to nearly a half-billion dollars. Trump has been unable to get a surety to stand for him to make a supersedeas bond in New York, and he hasn't got the cash to post himself.
Newsweek published a list of properties subject to execution to cover the defendant's debt to New York from his financial frauds. While it may look impressive, the debts secured by these properties make clear that the properties are not all equity; Mr. Trump doesn't actually own them outright, and what he owes his creditors significantly erodes the equity in them.
Mr. Trump faces another deception case next month involving his treatment of a personal hush-money payment as if it were a business expense in order to cheat the government out of tax revenue.
The son of one of Mr. Trump's scam victims, a contractor Trump cheated out of his final payment for woodworking that had been completed and accepted as good work by Mr. Trump's own general contractor, said of his now-deceased father "He would be embarrassed that Donald Trump is actually going to be the nominee for president for the Republican Party in 2016."
He hasn't apparently become any more reliable.
