By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – A federal judge on Thursday denied Donald Trump’s request to delay enforcement of the writer E. Jean Carroll’s $83.3 million verdict in her recent defamation case.
The order was issued by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan.
In the Jan. 26 verdict, jurors agreed with Carroll, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, that Trump had defamed her in June 2019 by denying he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Kaplan made the verdict official on Feb. 8 and gave the former U.S. president 30 days to post a bond or come up with cash during his appeal, which is expected to challenge the jury’s finding of liability and the amount of damages.
Trump had sought to delay enforcement of the verdict until the judge ruled on his motions to throw it out.
In seeking to avoid posting a big bond, or any bond at all, lawyers for Trump rejected Carroll’s claim that his finances were strained.
They assured that Carroll was “fully protected,” and said a $24.5 million bond would be more than enough to “secure any minimal risk” to her.
Carroll disagreed. She said Trump’s finances were opaque, called Trump the “least trustworthy of borrowers” and said his request “boils down to nothing more than ‘trust me.'”
Trump’s financial flexibility deteriorated last month when the judge who found him liable in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil fraud case ordered him to pay $454.2 million.
He offered to post a $100 million bond in that case, but James said any bond should cover the entire judgment. An appeals court judge on Feb. 28 denied Trump’s request to delay enforcement during the appeal.
Asked on March 5 if he could pay what was owed or post bond in both cases, Trump told Fox News: “I have a lot of money. I can do what I want to do. … I don’t worry about the money.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)
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