如果特朗普缴纳 1.75 亿美元，法院同意阻止追收特朗普 4.54 亿美元的民事欺诈判决
【中美创新时报2024年3月25日讯】（记者温友平编译）周一（25日），纽约上诉法院同意推迟收取前总统唐纳德·特朗普 4.54 亿美元民事欺诈判决的款项——如果他在 10 天内缴纳 1.75 亿美元。美联社记者詹妮弗·佩尔茨（JENNIFER PELTZ ）和迈克尔·R·西萨克（MICHAEL R. SISAK）对此进行了下述报道。
如果他这样做，收款时间将停止，并阻止州政府在这位共和党总统候选人上诉期间扣押他的资产。
这一事态发展发生在纽约总检察长利蒂西亚·詹姆斯预计将启动收集判决书之前。
寻求评论的消息已发送至詹姆斯的办公室和特朗普的律师。
特朗普的律师曾恳求州上诉法院停止收款，声称让承销商签署如此巨额的债券“实际上是不可能的”。
这项裁决是由该州中级上诉法院（该州初审法院上诉庭）做出的，特朗普正在努力推翻一名法官 2 月 16 日的裁决，该裁决称他在发展房地产帝国的过程中谎报了自己的财富，而正是这一帝国让他成为了总统职位明星。
詹姆斯赢得判决后，在特朗普请求上诉法院暂缓付款的法定暂停期间，她没有寻求执行该判决。
这一时期于周一结束，尽管詹姆斯本可以决定给特朗普更多时间。
民主党人詹姆斯上个月告诉美国广播公司新闻，如果特朗普没有钱支付，她将寻求没收他的资产，并“准备好确保判决得到支付”。
她没有详细说明这一过程，也没有具体说明她所指的持股是什么，她的办公室最近拒绝讨论其计划。与此同时，它已提交判决通知，这是朝着可能转向收集的技术步骤。
当特朗普周一抵达纽约另一家法院就其刑事封口费案举行单独听证会时，他没有回答记者关于他是否获得保释的问题。周一早些时候，他在社交媒体上发帖反对民事判决以及詹姆斯寻求执行该判决的可能性。
这位前总统将此案视为民主党的阴谋，声称他们试图拿走他的现金，以饿死他 2024 年的竞选活动。
“我本来打算用大部分辛苦赚来的钱来竞选总统。他们不希望我这样做——干扰选举！” 他在自己的“真相社交”平台上写道。他称自己的财产为“我的‘宝贝’”，一想到被迫出售这些财产或看到它们被没收，他就感到愤怒。
当某人没有现金支付民事法庭罚款时，扣押资产是一种常见的法律选择。就特朗普而言，潜在目标可能包括他的特朗普大厦顶层公寓、飞机、华尔街办公楼或高尔夫球场等财产。
司法部长还可以追查他的银行和投资账户。特朗普周五在社交媒体上坚称，他拥有近 5 亿美元现金，但打算将其中大部分用于总统竞选。他指责詹姆斯和纽约州法官亚瑟·恩戈伦（同为民主党人）寻求“拿走现金，这样我就不能在竞选中使用它”。
一种可能性是詹姆斯的办公室通过法律程序让当地执法部门扣押财产，然后寻求出售它们。 但卡多佐法学院房地产法教授斯图尔特·斯特克指出，特朗普案件的前景很复杂。
他说：“为如此规模的资产找到买家并不是一朝一夕就能完成的事情。”他指出，在任何普通拍卖中，“人们出价达到房产真实价值的机会相当大。”
特朗普的债务源于去年秋天长达数月的民事审判，该州指控他、他的公司和高管在财务报表上大幅夸大了他的财富，欺骗了与他有业务往来的银行家和保险公司。例如，这些声明多年来对他的顶层公寓的估价似乎是其实际面积的近三倍。
特朗普和他的共同被告否认有任何不当行为，称这些声明实际上低估了他的财产，并附有免责声明，并且没有被向他提供贷款或为他提供保险的机构从字面上理解。他说，顶层公寓的差异只是下属犯下的错误。
恩戈隆站在司法部长一边，命令特朗普支付 3.55 亿美元，外加日益增加的利息。一些共同被告，包括他的儿子和公司执行副总裁小唐纳德·特朗普和埃里克·特朗普，被勒令支付少得多的金额。
根据纽约法律，提出上诉通常不会推迟判决的执行。但如果个人或实体缴纳了保证金以弥补所欠款项，则会自动暂停。
前总统的律师表示，他不可能这样做。他们表示，承销商想要 120% 的判决结果，并且不会接受房地产作为抵押品。特朗普的律师表示，这将意味着占用超过 5.57 亿美元的现金、股票和其他流动资产，而特朗普的公司需要一些剩余资金来运营业务。
特朗普的律师已要求上诉法院在他不缴纳保证金的情况下冻结收款。总检察长办公室表示反对。
题图：共和党总统候选人、前总统唐纳德·特朗普。MIKE STEWART/ASSOCIATED PRESS
附原英文报道：
Court agrees to block collection of Trump’s $454m civil fraud judgment if he puts up $175m
By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL R. SISAK The Associated Press,Updated March 25, 2024
NEW YORK (AP) — A New York appeals court on Monday agreed to hold off collection of former President Donald Trump’s $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days.
If he does, it will stop the clock on collection and prevent the state from seizing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s assets while he appeals.
The development came just before New York Attorney General Letitia James was expected to initiate efforts to collect the judgment.
Messages seeking comment were sent to James’ office and to Trump’s lawyers.
Trump’s lawyers had pleaded for a state appeals court to halt collection, claiming it was “a practical impossibility” to get an underwriter to sign off on a bond for such a large sum.
The ruling was issued by the state’s intermediate appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court, where Trump is fighting to overturn a judge’s Feb. 16 finding that he lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.
After James won the judgment, she didn’t seek to enforce it during a legal time-out for Trump to ask the appeals court for a reprieve from paying up.
That period ended Monday, though James could have decided to allow Trump more time.
James, a Democrat, told ABC News last month that if Trump doesn’t have the money to pay, she would seek to seize his assets and was “prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid.”
She didn’t detail the process or specify what holdings she meant, and her office has declined more recently to discuss its plans. Meanwhile, it has filed notice of the judgment, a technical step toward potentially moving to collect.
As Trump arrived Monday at a different New York court for a separate hearing in his criminal hush money case, he didn’t respond to a journalist’s question about whether he’d obtained a bond. Earlier Monday, he railed in social media posts against the civil judgment and the possibility that James would seek to enforce it.
Casting the case as a plot by Democrats, the ex-president asserted that they were trying to take his cash to starve his 2024 campaign.
“I had intended to use much of that hard earned money on running for President. They don’t want me to do that — ELECTION INTERFERENCE!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform. Referring to his properties as “my ‘babies,’” he bristled at the idea of being forced to sell them or seeing them seized.
Seizing assets is a common legal option when someone doesn’t have the cash to pay a civil court penalty. In Trump’s case, potential targets could include such properties as his Trump Tower penthouse, aircraft, Wall Street office building or golf courses.
The attorney general also could go after his bank and investment accounts. Trump maintained on social media on Friday that he has almost $500 million in cash but intends to use much of it on his presidential run. He has accused James and New York state Judge Arthur Engoron, who’s also a Democrat, of seeking “to take the cash away so I can’t use it on the campaign.”
One possibility would be for James’ office to go through a legal process to have local law enforcement seize properties, then seek to sell them off. But that’s a complicated prospect in Trump’s case, noted Stewart Sterk, a real estate law professor at Cardozo School of Law.
“Finding buyers for assets of this magnitude is something that doesn’t happen overnight,” he said, noting that at any ordinary auction, “the chances that people are going to be able to bid up to the true value of the property is pretty slim.”
Trump’s debt stems from a monthslong civil trial last fall over the state’s allegations that he, his company and top executives vastly puffed up his wealth on financial statements, conning bankers and insurers who did business with him. The statements valued his penthouse for years as though it were nearly three times its actual size, for example.
Trump and his co-defendants denied any wrongdoing, saying the statements actually lowballed his fortune, came with disclaimers and weren’t taken at face value by the institutions that lent to or insured him. The penthouse discrepancy, he said, was simply a mistake made by subordinates.
Engoron sided with the attorney general and ordered Trump to pay $355 million, plus interest that grows daily. Some co-defendants, including his sons and company executive vice presidents, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, were ordered to pay far smaller amounts.
Under New York law, filing an appeal generally doesn’t hold off enforcement of a judgment. But there’s an automatic pause if the person or entity posts a bond that covers what’s owed.
The ex-president’s lawyers have said it’s impossible for him to do that. They said underwriters wanted 120% of the judgment and wouldn’t accept real estate as collateral. That would mean tying up over $557 million in cash, stocks and other liquid assets, and Trump’s company needs some left over to run the business, his attorneys have said.
Trump’s attorneys have asked an appeals court to freeze collection without his posting a bond. The attorney general’s office has objected.
