NY Gears Up to Seize Trump Westchester Assets If Bond Unpaid (1)

New York state’s $454 million judgment against Donald Trump in a civil fraud lawsuit was formally registered in Westchester County just outside Manhattan, a sign that his properties in the area may be at risk of being seized if the former president fails to post an appeal bond.

New York Attorney General Letitia James registered the judgment on March 6, according to the Westchester County Clerk’s online database. The filing didn’t give a reason for the registration or identify any Trump assets, but it will allow James to more easily secure liens, should she decide to do so, on two of the real estate mogul’s most valuable properties: Trump National Golf Club Westchester and the mostly undeveloped 212-acre Seven Springs estate.

James has said she’s prepared to start seizing Trump assets if he misses a March 25 deadline to post a bond for 120% of the judgment to put it on hold while he appeals. She hasn’t started that process, and the registration in Westchester County doesn’t automatically mean she will attempt to seize the properties. It’s nevertheless a clear sign they’re at risk.

Trump, who is campaigning to return to the White House in the November election, has asked a New York appeals court to waive the bond while he challenges the verdict, or allow him to post a smaller one for $100 million. A ruling on that request, which James opposes, could come at any time.

Trump’s lawyer, Christopher Kise, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment on the registration.

Golfers practice on the green at the Trump National Golf Club Westchester in Briarcliff Manor, New York.

Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg

The former president said in a March 18 filing that an appeal bond is “unattainable” because insurance companies that arrange them won’t take his real estate as collateral and will only take cash. Trump has already warned he doesn’t have enough cash for the bond and said he’ll be forced to sell properties in a “fire sale” to raise money if the court doesn’t help him out.

The state wouldn’t need to register the judgment in New York County to kick start lien procedures in Manhattan because that’s where the verdict was handed down. Trump’s properties on the island include Trump Tower and his 40 Wall Street skyscraper, not far from James’s offices.

In court filings, James has pushed back on Trump’s claim that insurance companies that arrange appeal bonds won’t take his real estate as collateral, arguing that the former president had not provided hard evidence that the industry will only take cash. The attorney general said Trump’s insurance expert, who made the claim in an affidavit, was a close Trump associate whose testimony at trial had been discredited by the judge.

Kise on Thursday responded in a letter of his own to the appeals court. He blasted James for what he described as her indifference to Trump’s inability to raise cash for a bond without disposing of his “iconic, multi-billion-dollar real-estate holdings.” He said James won’t acknowledge that privately held firms like the Trump Organization cannot easily secure massive appeal bonds the way “enormous companies” can.

Justice Arthur Engoron, who oversaw a nearly 11-week trial, found Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were liable for inflating the former president’s wealth by as much as $3.6 billion a year to get better terms on loans from Deutsche Bank AG and other lenders, reaping hundreds of millions of dollars in “illegal profit.”

On Thursday, the judge issued an order formalizing the three-year appointment of an independent monitor to oversee the inner workings of Trump’s company, one of several penalties from the verdict. The appointment of former judge Barbara Jones was expected, as she already held the role since a monitor was appointed earlier in the case.

Seven Springs featured heavily in the trial, and Engoron ruled the property had been wildly overvalued for years. Trump purchased the estate in 1995 for $7.5 million. It consists of two large homes, undeveloped land and a few other buildings. Trump valued the property at more than five times the appraised values in some years — as high as $291 million — often by including the value of mansions that didn’t exist.

(Updates with new Trump letter to court blasting possible “fire sale”)

To contact the reporter on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Angela Moon at hmoon43@bloomberg.net

Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou, Peter Blumberg

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