Fraud process
Attorney General calls for cancellation of Trump’s $175 million bail
The New York Attorney General Letitia James wants to have the bail paid by an insurer for Donald Trump canceled.
© Bebeto Matthews / DPA
Donald Trump only managed to deposit the $175 million in bail in his New York fraud trial through an insurer. Now Letitia James questions whether the insurer was even entitled to do this.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has called for the annulment of ex-President Donald Trump demanded a security deposit of 175 million dollars (164 million euros) in a civil case for business fraud. In a document dated Friday, the claim is justified by the fact that the company that guarantees the security is too small and opaque.
Instead of choosing “a large national insurance company that is licensed in New York,” has experience in security services, and whose “liquidity is well over $175 million,” Trump preferred a “small insurer.” He is not authorized to do business in New York and has total liquidity of $138 million.
Trump had deposited the security deposit on April 1st and thereby avoided coercive measures by the New York prosecutor’s office, such as blocking accounts or seizing properties.
Donald Trump was originally supposed to pay $454 million
In the civil case for business fraud, Trump and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. were found guilty of artificially inflating the assets of their real estate empire over the years in order to obtain favorable conditions from banks and insurance companies. Trump was therefore sentenced in February to a fine of around $355 million plus interest, which totaled around $454 million.
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Trump, who wants to run for the Republicans again in the presidential election in November, appealed against the verdict and therefore did not have to pay the fine for the time being – but did have to pay the security deposit.
Trump was originally fined $454 million. However, his lawyers had said that the billionaire was unable to do so. The background is that most of Trump’s assets are tied up in real estate and are not immediately available to him in cash. An appeals court in New York then significantly reduced the security deposit to be provided to $175 million.