Pool/Reuters
- Trump's NY fraud trial judge on Thursday declined to recuse himself over a hallway conversation.
- Trump's lawyers had said Judge Arthur Engoron improperly spoke about the case outside the courtroom.
- Engoron says he remains impartial since being ranted at briefly by "a landlord-tenant lawyer."
The Manhattan judge who ordered Donald Trump to pay a nearly $500 million fraud judgment has declined — in no uncertain terms — the former president's demand that he recuse himself from the case over a brief hallway conversation.
A "nothingburger" over an unsolicited "90-second diatribe," the judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron said in declining Thursday to step down or hold a hearing on the matter.
Engoron is the judge who in February ordered Trump to pay back hundreds of millions of dollars in bank loans and profits gained by a decade of fraudulent net-worth statements.
The sum owed by Trump accrues another $1 million in interest every nine days, and had reached $471 million by Thursday. The judgment continues to accrue interest but is on hold while Trump appeals. Engoron, meanwhile, continues to supervise ongoing anti-fraud monitoring at the Trump Organization.
Trump's lawyers recently demanded Engoron recuse himself after a lawyer not connected to the case, Adam Leitman Bailey, revealed he had spoken with Engoron about the case outside the courtroom weeks before the judgement.
Engoron did not mince words in saying on Thursday that he would not step down over "this 90-second, unsolicited diatribe."
"Sometime in or about February of this year, several weeks before I issued the Post-Trial Decision and Order, at the end of the business day, I left my robing room in the courthouse at 60 Centre Street and rode an elevator down to the main floor," Engoron wrote.
"There, on the outskirts of the famous rotunda, Bailey accosted and started haranguing me about Executive Law 63(12). He did not relay any alleged facts," Engoron wrote.
"Prior to that that time, I considered Bailey a professional acquaintance and a distant friend. His sudden appearance and vehement speech took me aback, and I simply told him that he was wrong. He trailed after me, still droning on, as I descended the Judge's stairs to the street level. I entered my vehicle without saying another word (except, perhaps, 'goodbye') and departed."
Engoron also said he has spent more than three years presiding over Trump's case, and "did not need a landlord-tenant ranting" to teach him anything new or of note.
"I did not initiate, welcome, encourage, engage in, or learn from, much less enjoy, Bailey's tirade," Engoron added.
"I did not base any part of any of my rulings on it, as Bailey has outlandishly, mistakenly, and defamatorily claimed," the judge wrote.
As a parting shot at Bailey, Engoron said that he had easily forgotten the unpleasant encounter, because, due to the fraud case's notoriety, he is often confronted by members of the public, "at parties, in parks, in restaurants, and on public transportation."
Lawyers for Trump and Bailey did not immediately respond to requests for comment.