Stephanie Keith/Getty Images; Brandon Bell/Getty Images
- Donald Trump secured a bond to halt E. Jean Carroll's $83.3 million defamation-judgment collection.
- The bond, worth $91.63 million, offers Trump relief as he appeals the case.
- Trump's next challenge is his $454 million obligation in his New York civil fraud verdict.
Former President Donald Trump has posted a bond that will stop E. Jean Carroll from being able to collect $83.3 million from a defamation judgment against him.
The bond — totaling $91.63 million to reflect mandatory interest and fees — allows Trump a measure of relief as he appeals the case and continues to pursue the presidency. Without it, Carroll's lawyers could have moved to enforce the judgment and go after Trump's assets following the deadline on Monday next week.
The bond agreement effectively means that Trump offered some form of collateral to the Federal Insurance Co. — commonly known as Chubb — to guarantee the cash would be there if he lost his appeals and the judgment was enforced.
Trump agreed to the terms of the bond with the Federal Insurance Co. on Tuesday, according to documents filed in court Friday.
Details of the deal were not made public in court documents. Chubb has previously declined to speak with Business Insider about underwriting Trump's appeal bond.
Chubb likely charged Trump another $250,000 or more — as much as $1 million — as a premium on the bond, Neil Pedersen, the owner of the Manhattan surety-bond agency Pedersen & Sons, said.
Trump would have shopped around for the lowest premium, and there may have been more than one carrier competing for his business, Pedersen said. Still, because of the size of the bond, and the high publicity surrounding it, "I don't think there were a lot of companies competing to do this," Pedersen said.
With a bond now in place, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw Carroll's defamation trial against Trump, can pause Carroll's ability to collect the judgment.
But Trump can't touch the money — it will remain on ice, likely collecting interest in a dedicated, interest-bearing bank account — until the appeals are exhausted.
Trump's lawyers are appealing the defamation verdict and have argued in a court filing that Kaplan erred by not allowing Trump to talk more on the witness stand. They're also arguing that the damages are too high.
A Manhattan federal-court jury found Trump liable in January for the $83.3 million in defamation damages for his relentless attacks on Carroll, whom he called a liar after she accused him of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s.
Mandatory costs and interest raise the bond by a standardized 111% above the original judgment in federal cases, Pedersen said.
"It's an unwritten rule among the court clerks, but that's what has become standard for appeal bonds in federal cases," he said.
A different jury in May found Trump liable for the sexual assault and for other defamation claims. Trump has already put the $5 million in damages he owes in that case into a court-controlled account as he pursues appeals.
Trump's bigger problem is the judgment he owes in the New York attorney general's civil fraud lawsuit against him and his company.
He has until March 25 to obtain a bond for the $454 million verdict he owes in that case — an amount that grows with interest each day and exceeds most estimates of his cash holdings.