Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference after attending the E. Jean Carroll second civil trial in New York City on Jan. 17, 2024.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump on Friday appealed a civil defamation verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll, and posted a $91.6 million bond as he asked to avoid having to pay damages he owes her as he pursues that appeal.
The appeal came just three days before Trump faced a deadline to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll for defaming her in 2019, when as president, he first denied her allegation that he had raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.
The $91.6 million bond he posted is meant to secure that damage award in the event his appeal of January’s jury verdict fails. Trump will get the money from the bond back if he wins his appeal.
Carroll in a Substack post later Friday called the bond size “stupendous,” and suggested that she would have quickly begun seizing Trump’s assets if he had not secured the judgment by the deadline.
She added that her while attorney, Roberta Kaplan, “is strong enough to yank a golden toilet out of the floor at Trump Tower and toss it through the window, this bond saves Robbie the trouble of showing up with US Marshals on Monday to do so.”
Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s lawyer, on Thursday denied a request by Trump to delay paying the writer.
E. Jean Carroll and her attorneys Shawn Crowley and Roberta Kaplan react outside the Manhattan Federal Court after the verdict in the second civil trial after she accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago, in New York City on Jan. 26, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
The bond was issued by Federal Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Chubb Insurance Company, based in Chesapeake, Virginia, according to a copy of the document Trump signed. It represents 110% of the total damages awarded to Carroll in the case, which reflects the fact that the damage award is increased by 9% annually under New York law.
A court filing about the bond did not reveal how much Trump either paid, or put up as collateral, to obtain it.
Chubb’s chairman and CEO, Evan Greenberg, in 2018 was appointed by Trump to the U.S. Trade Representative’s “Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations.” Greenberg is no longer on that panel.
Chubb is referenced in another major Trump legal matter: the New York civil business fraud case in which Trump has been ordered to pay more than $450 million for lying on financial forms about his net worth and property values.
The lawsuit by New York’s attorney general that led to those damages said that Trump misrepresented the size of his Trump Tower triplex apartment to a Chubb appraiser, who had gone to the unit in 2010 as part of the underwriting process for a homeowner’s insurance policy.
Trump, who personally conducted a walk-through tour of the apartment, kept the master bedroom and a dressing room off limits because “Mrs. Trump was sleeping,” the appraiser wrote, according to the suit.
The appraiser also noted that there was little time to take measurements of the property, because the appointment “was conducted at a speed directed by Mr. Trump,” who had allotted only about 15 minutes for the review, the suit alleged.
Trump told the appraiser that he thought the triplex was about 25,000 to 30,000 square feet, according to suit. But the actual size was 10,996 square feet.
Kaplan gave Carroll’s attorneys until Monday morning to submit any opposition to Trump’s proposed bond and court order. If there is a disagreement about Trump’s requests, the parties will argue before Kaplan on Monday afternoon.
A spokesman for Carroll’s attorneys, asked if they would object to the bond proposal, told CNBC, “will have to wait and see.”
Trump is also appealing another Manhattan federal civil verdict, reached last year, which ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million in damages for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s and then defaming her in comments he made in 2022.
As part of that other appeal, he posted $5.6 million cash with the court to secure the damages he owes.
Trump is also appealing the $454 million verdict in his civil business fraud case in New York state court.
An appeals court judge last week rejected Trump’s request to post a bond of just $100 million to secure those damages as he seeks to overturn the fraud verdict.
A panel of appellate judges is set to weigh in on Trump’s bond request in the fraud case.
Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, separately faces 91 criminal counts in four separate cases. He has pleaded not guilty in all of those cases.
