'Irreparable injury' Trump begs for stay on $83.3M order

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Background: In this courtroom sketch, attorney Alina Habba points to her client, former President Donald Trump, as she delivers her closing arguments to the jury, Friday, Jan. 26, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP). Inset: Writer E. Jean Carroll. April 26, 2023. (Andrea Renault/STAR MAX/IPx 2023)

While a federal judge in New York mulls over whether a stay should remain in place on enforcement of his $83.3 million defamation award to writer E. Jean Carroll, Donald Trump’s legal team is asking for more time to avoid “irreparable injury.”

The request to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan came by way of a 2-page letter from attorneys Alina Habba and John Sauer. It asks the court to renew an existing stay on the execution of payment to Carroll that is set to expire on Monday, or drastically reduce what the former president pays up front.

Trump has proposed roughly $24 million on an unsecured bond. The rest that he owes Carroll would be held off as he fights the order on appeal. As Law&Crime previously reported, the former president filed a number of post-trial motions arguing for a new trial on Tuesday, claiming the judge had “completely muzzled” his testimony at trial and unfairly prejudiced him.

For now, all parties are waiting on the judge to rule and according to the letter from Trump’s legal team, if the judge does not rule on Thursday then they would request the judge enter a temporary administrative stay, something Habba and Sauer wrote is “common practice.”

“On March 4, 2024, this Court entered an order indicating that its ruling would not issue yet but ‘will be rendered as promptly as is reasonable,”” the defense attorneys wrote. “Requiring President Trump to post a bond or other security before this Court’s ruling on his stay motion threatens to impose irreparable injury in the form of substantial costs (which may or may not be recoverable).”

As Trump looks for ways to delay paying Carroll, he also has the pressing issue of $464 million owed to New York State after his defeat there in civil fraud court. Trump filed a notice for a motion to appeal the enforcement of that bond in February, saying he could post $100 million but needed a way to come up with the rest of the cash by potentially selling his off his properties

As part of the civil fraud judgment against, Trump was also banned for three years from doing any sort of real estate business in New York. After he filed the notice, a judge promptly denied Trump’s request to stay payment but did lift the hold on his business ban so he could shore up the cash.

Trump hasn’t filed a formal appeal just yet but he has been railing against the presiding judge at his civil fraud trial, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, on his Truth Social social media platform.

“THE ONLY FRAUD WAS ENGORON’S VALUATION OF MAR-A-LAGO FOR A TINY FRACTION OF WHAT IT REALLY WORTH. NO CRIME, NO VICTIM, ONLY PROFITS AND SUCCESS,” Trump wrote. [Emphasis original]