Trump Already Owes $99 Million of Interest in Fraud Verdict (2)

The judge who hit Donald Trump with a $355 million verdict in New York’s civil fraud lawsuit over his asset valuations said the former president owes another $99 million in interest, largely affirming an estimate made public last week by the state attorney general.

A judgment formalizing Justice Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 verdict was posted Friday to the court docket in Manhattan, locking in damages at $454 million — for now — and starting a 30-day countdown for Trump to appeal. The verdict last week had left the amount of interest blank.

New York Attorney General Letitia James won the trial after presenting evidence that Trump, his sons and his company inflated his assets by billions of dollars a year to get better terms on loans for more than a decade.

Interest on what Trump owes will increase by almost $112,000 a day as long as he doesn’t pay, even during appeals, according to the attorney general’s office.

The verdict — on top of an $83.3 million damage award against Trump in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation trial last month — brings to about $540 million the amount Trump owes in court. The sums are testing Trump’s finances as he campaigns to return to the White House in the November election. He’s also facing four criminal cases, one of which goes to trial next month in Manhattan.

Christopher Kise, a lawyer for Trump, didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment about Engoron’s judgment.

Trump began accruing interest as far back as 2019, when the state’s probe was underway. The award stems from the savings Trump got on four real estate loans by inflating his wealth, plus his profit from two property sales in Washington and New York. James alleged Trump wouldn’t have been able to buy the properties if his bank account hadn’t been padded with money he saved through fraud.

The judgment also calculated interest on damages for Trump’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as former Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, all of whom were accused of participating in the fraud. The total damages owned by the three comes to about $10.4 million.

The initial fine was close to the $370 million sought by the attorney general, who also requested that interest be repaid on the illegal profit. The final award exceeds the $250 million sought in the original complaint, which James increased based on additional evidence presented at trial.

Engoron’s verdict last week didn’t impose a lifetime ban preventing Trump from doing business in New York, as sought by James. But a three-year ban on running a business in the state was nevertheless a symbolic blow for the former president, whose career blossomed in New York City.

(Updates with interest owed by Trump’s sons, former chief financial officer.)

To contact the reporters on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net;
Patricia Hurtado in Federal Court in Manhattan at pathurtado@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net

Steve Stroth

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