Trump secures $91.6 million bond in E. Jean Carroll defamation case as deadline nears
NEW YORK — With days to go before the deadline, Donald Trump’s lawyers said Friday that he had secured the $83.3 million he owes writer E. Jean Carroll, ensuring she will be paid if he loses his appeal.
In Manhattan Federal Court filings, Alina Habba informed Judge Lewis Kaplan that Trump had secured a bond for $91.6 million from Federal Insurance Co. and also filed a notice of appeal of the jury’s January findings that Trump defamed Carroll, 80, when he was president when he denied her rape allegations.
The presumptive Republican nominee for president had until March 11 to come up with the cash, which Carroll won’t see until Trump has exhausted his appeals. Kaplan gave Carroll’s lawyers until 11 a.m. Monday to oppose or consent to Trump’s bond application before he decides whether to approve it. If they have objections, the judge said he would hear arguments that afternoon.
Carroll’s lawyer, Robbie Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, declined to comment. Habba couldn’t be reached.
Trump notified the court he’d meet the deadline to secure the funding after Kaplan denied his request Thursday to temporarily push back the due date until three days after he’d ruled on outstanding post-trial motions, including Trump’s request for a new trial. Kaplan took no pity on Trump’s request for a delay, writing that his “current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions.”
The entity through which Trump secured the bond is a member of the Chubb Group, a property and casualty insurance giant whose CEO, Evan Greenberg, he tapped to serve on his presidential trade policy advisory committee in 2018.
The damages a jury awarded Carroll in January added to the $5 million Trump already owed her after another jury last May found he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and defamed her as a “complete con job” and other pejoratives on Truth Social in 2022. Shortly after that verdict, Judge Kaplan found Trump further liable for defaming Carroll during similar comments when he was president, leaving the jury impaneled in the other of Carroll’s two Trump lawsuits to decide only how much more he owed.
Trump, 77, didn’t attend the first trial, but he turned up for several days in the damages case, earning a scorning from Judge Kaplan when he defamed Carroll in front of the jury while she was testifying. Trump spent just a few minutes under oath at the trial, prohibited from disputing the settled facts that he’d sexually assaulted and defamed her.
The $88.3 million Trump owes the former Elle columnist represents a fraction of his debt to be paid this month. He has until around March 25 to shell out nearly half a billion dollars in his civil fraud case brought by state Attorney General Tish James.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron on Feb. 16 found the GOP front runner and his former top Trump Organization execs liable for multiple fraud claims for egregiously misrepresenting his net worth while applying for loans and in the course of other lucrative business deals.
In addition to imposing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines proliferating with interest, Engoron issued yearslong and permanent bans against Trump and his crew, prohibiting them from doing business in New York.
By the time the ruling came down, Trump’s majority share of the fines — $355 million — had climbed to $454 million with interest and is expanding by $112,000 daily. His lawyers failed to convince an appeals court to let him secure that judgment with a fraction of the total as he appeals.
AG James has said she won’t hesitate to seize Trump-owned assets if he doesn’t pay up.
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