New York Attorney General Letitia James can target any of former President Donald Trump’s assets from “across the world” in order to pay the $454 million judgment he owes, according to lawyer Renee Zaytsev on Saturday.
In February, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay $355 million, plus interest, and barred him from doing business in New York for three years after finding him liable for financial fraud in September 2023 in a lawsuit brought on by James’ office. Trump, the presumed GOP presidential nominee in the 2024 election, has claimed that he has done nothing wrong and that the case is politically motivated against him. He has appealed Engoron’s judgment.
Meanwhile, the former president has until Monday to come up with a $454 million bond to stop James from seizing his assets in order to pay Engoron’s judgment.
MSNBC’s Katie Phang asked Zaytsev onThe Katie Phang Show on Saturday about what James could do if Trump can’t come up with the bond.
This article is trash, just like most of Newsweek these days. It quotes a single lawyer who says that the AG could seize any of Trump’s assets that she wants. That’s technically true, of course, but the AGs job is to recover the judgement, and she will go after the most liquid assets first. She would go after real estate only after his bank and investment accounts are seized, as a last resort. All of his real estate is likely already mortgaged up the wazoo (based on inflated values) and it will take a long time to sell, for very little gain compared to the amount of effort put in.
But the DA also has the benefit of a court-appointed monitor who has been running things there, and knows where the low-hanging fruit is. The DA has already put in paperwork in Westchester, where he has a few properties. She might have concluded that if she needs to start taking real estate, the stuff there has the highest actual value that can be realized if it is liquidated.
So it’s disingenuous to make it sound like Leticia James is going to move into Trump’s apartment at Trump Tower or Mar-A-Lago tomorrow.
I’ve heard that if there is a mortgage on a property and it is seized by the government that they don’t need to pay the mortgage. Supposedly the lender would have a new claim against for the remaining amount on the mortgage.
I don’t know if this is true, it is not from a verified source.
I’ve read that too, but I very much doubt it. It would screw over the lender big-time. In any other circumstance, they would get paid first on any sale of that property. Why should they get cut out if it gets seized? That leaves suing Trump directly as their only recourse. And in case you haven’t noticed, that all takes time and is very expensive. It seems wrong for the State to saddle Trump’s creditors with that.
Plus, it would effectively give more “credit” to the person whose property is being seized than they are due. If there is a $100M property that has $80M in liens, and he sells it on his own, he will only have $20M left. Why should that change if the State has to seize it and sell it? That would o ly give Trump incentive to force the State to take the properties: he would lose control of fewer properties that way.
The Guardian was reporting that mortgages take priority
They’re quoting Adam Leitman Bailey, a great real estate lawyer. His Wikipedia page is interesting, he was involved in some controversies, resulting in him not being allowed to do his work for 4 months.
In the article he comments about the Trump case. Which I find odd as lawyers usually stick to what they know.
A bit of an odd person that they’re quoting.
The loss that the lender takes on a seized mortgage counts as income for the borrower.
This is the case. Government always gets paid first.
Sounds legit. Newsweek will run the headline this afternoon.