Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event at Greensboro Coliseum on March 2, 2024 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
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Donald Trump on Thursday lost a bid to delay paying an $83.3 million civil defamation judgment to writer E. Jean Carroll.
The denial of Trump’s request by Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan means the former president by Monday must either pay that amount to Carroll, or put up a bond or assets to cover the value of the judgment while appealing a jury’s verdict in January that he defamed her after she accused him of rape.
Trump had asked Kaplan to delay the judgment from taking effect until after he rules on post-trial motions in the case.
In a court filing Wednesday, Trump attorney Alina Habba had asked the court for a delay “until three business days after the Court rules on his stay motion.”
Kaplan in his order Thursday rejected that request, writing that Trump’s “current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions.”
“He has had since January 26 to organize his finances with the knowledge that he might need to bond this judgment, yet he waited until 25 days after the jury verdict” to ask for a pause in the judgment, Kaplan wrote.
He also rejected an argument from Trump’s lawyers that the ex-president would suffer “irreparable injury” if he was forced to post a bond for the full judgment because he would have to pay non-recoverable fees.
“The expense of ongoing litigation in the absence of a stay does not constitute ‘irreparable injury’ in the relevant sense of that term,” the judge wrote.
A spokesman for Carroll’s lawyers declined to comment.
Habba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to the Carroll case, Trump also has been ordered to pay a $454 million judgment in a civil business fraud lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Trump has not yet been forced to pay that amount or put up…
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