March 20 (UPI) — An attorney for New York Attorney General Letitia James expressed skepticism in a filing Wednesday over Donald Trump’s effort to pay the $454 million bond judgment against him.
Dennis Fan, senior assistant solicitor general to the attorney general, wrote that the court should reject the former president’s appeal for a stay of judgment in the fraud case.
Fan wrote that Trump’s explanation of his difficulty to secure a surety loan is “unreliable” and Trump’s claim that the judgment is unusual is meritless. He adds that Trump’s team has not shared any documentation to support the claim that Trump has tried to secure the funds and been denied.
Trump, who is the presumptive Republican nominee for president, claimed in a filing last week that he has approached about 30 surety companies and been rejected by them all.
“Yet defendants supply no documentary evidence that demonstrates precisely what real property they offered to sureties, on what terms that property was offered, or precisely why the sureties were unwilling to accept the assets,” Fan wrote in the filing to the appellate division of the New York Supreme Court.
“As far as the court can infer, sureties may have refused to accept defendants’ specific holdings as collateral because using Mr. Trump’s real estate will generally need ‘a property appraisal’ and his holdings are not nearly as valuable as defendants claim,” he continued.
Fan also noted that Trump’s team has not proposed any alternatives to secure the judgment.
Trump posted a $91.6 million bond in the E. Jean Carroll defamation judgment against him on March 8. The Chubb insurance company underwrote that bond.
Trump’s defense has argued that it is impossible for him to secure the money needed to pay the bond for the civil judgment. The judgment is the result of a guilty verdict against the former president, his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization for fraudulently inflating the value of assets.
Donald Trump has until Monday to pay the bond in full. James has said she would take legal action to obtain the judgment if Trump does not pay it. This would include attempting to seize his properties.
