Trump real estate fraud suit

Post Reply New Topic

Did you see the responses in the comment section? Is it bad to laugh at idiots too dumb to know they're idiots?

Sometimes I wonder how these people manage to breathe or dress themselves on their own.

Well, as they're sending money to an alleged billionaire...

A suspicious white powder supposedly spilled out of an envelope addressed to Justice Arthur Engoron at Manhattan Supreme Court on Wednesday morning.

The substance was discovered around 9:30, when a New York State court officer opened the envelope and the powder spilled onto their pants, police told The Post.

As of noon Wednesday, the building had not been evacuated and there were no reported injuries, they noted.

The substance was also still unidentified.

The judge – who levied a $355 million fine against Donald Trump earlier this month – was not exposed, but two people had been isolated, Law360’s Frank G. Runyeon wrote on X.

Former President Donald Trump has not been able to get a bond to secure the $464 million fraud judgment against him, his lawyers said in a court filing Monday.

Trump and his company need to post a bond for the full amount by next week in order to stop New York Attorney General Letitia James from being able to collect while he appeals. They've asked an appeals court to step in in the meantime and said Monday that they have not had any success getting a bond.

"Defendants’ ongoing diligent efforts have proven that a bond in the judgment’s full amount is 'a practical impossibility,'" the filing said. "These diligent efforts have included approaching about 30 surety companies through 4 separate brokers."

Their efforts, including “countless hours negotiating with one of the largest insurance companies in the world,” have proven that “obtaining an appeal bond in the full amount” of the Judgment “is not possible under the circumstances presented,” the filing said.

The other bond companies will not “accept hard assets such as real estate as collateral,” but “will only accept cash or cash equivalents (such as marketable securities),” the filing said. He also noted those companies typically “require collateral of approximately 120% of the amount of the judgment” — which would total about $557 million.

"In addition, sureties would likely charge bond premiums of approximately 2 percent per year with two years in advance—an upfront cost over $18 million," the filing said. That $18 million would not be recoverable even if Trump wins his appeal.

In all, the filing said, the "actual amount of cash or cash equivalents required 'to collateralize the bond and have sufficient capital to run the business and satisfy its other obligations' approach[es] $1 billion."

While the filing says Trump can't afford the bond, it also argues that the attorney general doesn't have to worry about being able to collect her judgment.

"Defendants’ real estate holdings — including iconic properties like 40 Wall Street, Doral Miami, and Mar-a-Lago, — greatly exceed the amount of the judgment. Such assets are impossible to secrete or dispose of surreptitiously, leaving the plaintiff effectively secured during the pendency of an appeal," the filing said.

Aint schadenfreude grand!

State prosecutors in New York said Thursday that fewer than 300 of the over 170,000 documents recently turned over to lawyers for former President Donald Trump are potentially relevant to his criminal defense and that their case alleging falsified business records should proceed to trial on April 15.

In a court filing, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office said the vast majority of the evidence turned over by federal prosecutors that it considers new and relevant originated from special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and has no bearing on the allegations against Trump.

“Enough is enough. These tactics by defendant and defense counsel should be stopped,” the DA’s filing said, referring to Trump’s attempts to further delay or derail the trial.

Cohen is expected to be a key witness in the trial, which was delayed until at least mid-April following the eleventh-hour disclosures by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan. Trump's lawyers have accused the DA's office of failing to do its due diligence by getting the records earlier, and have asked Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the charges as a punishment.

In its filing Thursday, the DA's office called their arguments "a red herring."

"Defendant has reacted to the USAO’s disclosures by demanding that this Court dismiss the charges, preclude witnesses, or adjourn the trial for at least ninety days; and by leveling wild and untrue allegations of misconduct and malfeasance," the filing said. "Defendant's accusations are wholly unfounded, and the circumstances here do not come close to warranting the extreme sanctions he has sought."

The DA argued the “overwhelming majority of the production is entirely immaterial, duplicative or substantially duplicative of previously disclosed materials, or cumulative of evidence concerning Michael Cohen’s unrelated federal convictions that defendant has been on notice about for months."

As it has done previously, the DA's office also blamed Trump for the late disclosures, saying his lawyers didn't raise any concerns that items were missing when it turned over the information it had obtained from the U.S. attorney's office in June of last year. Trump's team didn't seek additional documents from federal prosecutors until this past January, which eventually led to the additional documents being turned over, the filing noted.

The filing also shed some light on why the U.S. Attorney's office hadn't turned the documents over to the DA in June — it said they didn't have the Mueller-related material at that time.

An affidavit by one of the Manhattan D.A.’s prosecutors, Christopher Conroy, said he'd been told that federal prosecutors didn't get the FBI interview records — called 302s — until Dec. 2023, when they were sent in response to a Freedom of Information request.

The U.S. Attorney's office also turned over piles of information from its own investigation into Cohen, including bank records that may or may not relate to Cohen's guilty plea to the federal election charge stemming from the hush money payments. Federal prosecutors said it would be "unreasonably burdensome" for them to sort through the relevant bank records, so they handed them all over to the DA, and the DA then shared them with the defense, according to the filing.

Conroy added that other evidence turned over by federal prosecutors was duplicative, including copies of Cohen’s cell phones, which the DA’s office already had and had shared with Trump's defense.

The DA's office noted it had agreed to a delay of the trial, which had been scheduled to begin on March 25, to allow Trump's team time to review the evidence. Merchan stayed the case until April 15, which the DA argued is when the proceedings should move forward.

A state appeals court ruled that Donald Trump and his co-defendants in the New York civil fraud case have 10 days to post a $175 million bond, down from the $464 million judgment due Monday.

The 11th-hour ruling from a panel of state Appellate Division judges is a major victory and relief for the former president, whose attorneys had said coming up with such a bond was a “practical impossibility.” The ruling means state Attorney General Letitia James’ office cannot yet begin collecting on the judgment.

Before Monday’s ruling, Trump was liable for $454 million, most of the fraud judgment, but the amount he owed had been increasing by more than $111,000 a day because of added interest.

Why is he getting special treatment in the courts vs. the same justice for all criminals? Lame.