Trump is suddenly in need of a lot of cash. That’s everyone’s problem – By Abdallah Fayyad (VOX) / Feb 16, 2024
The former president was just ordered to pay $355 million in his New York fraud case, bringing the tally this year to nearly half a billion dollars in civil damages.
Abdallah Fayyad is a correspondent at Vox, where he covers the impacts of social and economic policies. He previously served on the Boston Globe editorial board.
Two recent verdicts have now left Donald Trump on the hook for nearly half a billion dollars.
On Friday, a New York judge handed the former president a $355 million penalty, and banned him from serving in a leadership position in any business in New York for three years, for fraudulently inflating his net worth to lenders in order to receive more favorable loan agreements. And in January, a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her after she accused him of raping her. (A separate jury in May had found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s.)
Together, the damages from these two lawsuits are worth more than the amount of cash Trump claimed to have on hand last April, potentially putting him in a financial bind as he also faces debt repayments and mounting legal fees. Even if he appeals these decisions, as he is expected to do, he still likely will have to front the money while that process runs its course, or secure a bond, which would come with its own conditions.
