Gotham/Getty Images
- Trump and Trump Org were due to start trial on October 2 over New York's accusations of widespread business fraud.
- Thursday, an appellate judge in Manhattan granted what may only be a temporary hold on that date.
- The parties will now spend two weeks mired in an appellate-level, litigation side-show over Trump's claim that NY's case is too old.
In an interim victory for President Donald Trump, his family, and his real-estate company, an appellate judge in Manhattan on Thursday put a temporary hold on a massive, civil fraud trial that had been set to begin October 2.
The judge, Associate Justice David Friedman, put the trial start date on ice, at least for now, until a full appellate panel can consider Trump's contention that New York's fraud allegations, which include financial documents stretching back to 2011, are too old, and that any trial must be severely limited in scope if not canceled outright.
The appellate-level, eleventh-hour monkey wrench in the $250 million civil trial was first reported by the Daily Beast. Four legal sources confirmed the new litigation sideshow and Thursday's trial date stay for Insider.
The new matter will be handled on an expedited schedule, with all legal arguments filed by September 25, followed by yet-scheduled oral arguments, the sources said.
It's unclear how, or even whether, it will affect the October 2 trial date.
State Attorney General Letitia James contends that over the course of a decade, Trump lied about the value of his assets in official financial documents by as much as $3.6 billion a year, calculated misstatements that let him pocket hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits from banks, insurers, and tax officials.
She is seeking to revoke Trump Org's charter to operate as a New York corporation and to permanently bar the former president, his sons, Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump, and two top Trump Org executives from ever running a business in the state again, among other sought penalties.
Trump has countered, including in a face-to-face deposition before James, that asset appraisal is a subjective art, and that his financial filings contained disclaimers warning banks and insurers to double-check his accountants' math.
The judge who will preside over the trial, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, has repeatedly vowed that the October 2 date will be kept "come hell or high water."
Trump's new appellate gambit aims directly over the head of Engoron, who has rejected all of Trump's previous efforts to limit the case on statute-of-limitations and other grounds, deeming Trump's last attempt to delay the trial "completely without merit."
But New York's Appellate Division in Manhattan has been more receptive, earlier this year freeing Ivanka Trump from the lawsuit because her work as a Trump Organization vice president came to a stop when she moved to Washington, DC, in 2017, as her father became president of the United States.
Under New York statute of limitations law, it doesn't matter how far back alleged fraud stretches, so long as it is all part of a continuing course of fraudulent action.
"We are confident in our case and will be ready for trial," a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said late Thursday.
The parties are due back in Engoron's court on September 22, when the sides will argue over each other's competing bids to decide trial issues early and in their own favor.
They'll also argue over the attorney general request that Trump's side be hit with $10,000 sanctions all around – including the lawyers – for repeating the same "frivolous" arguments in court papers.