March 8 (UPI) — Former President Donald Trump posted a $91.6 million bond Friday that was required to appeal E. Jean Carroll’s $83.3 million defamation judgment against him.
The bond payment is meant to ensure Carroll gets the damage award money if Trump’s appeal fails. It is greater than the defamation award because the court generally requires the losing party to post 110% of the judgment amount.
Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday denied Trump’s request to delay the $83.3 million defamation judgment, giving him three days to pay or post the bond.
The bond was underwritten by the Chubb insurance company, which will secure the $83.3 million payment but not any further appeals.
A jury awarded Carroll the payment after finding that Trump defamed her by publicly denying he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
Trump contends that the award was excessive. Carroll’s lawyers argued to the jury that the damages needed to be large to stop Trump from continuing to defame Carroll.
Kaplan wrote in his ruling Thursday that Trump’s “current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions.”
In a prior ruling, a jury found that Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll during the encounter in a New York City department store and defaming her in his comments after she recounted the story in her memoir.
He was ordered to pay a total of $5 million in that case including $2 million in compensation and $20,000 in punitive damages for battery in addition to $1.7 million for repetitional repair, $1 million in compensatory damages and $280,000 in punitive damages for defamation.
Trump is also appealing that ruling and posted $5.6 million in cash.
He must also post another $454 million by March 25 to appeal the business fraud penalty awarded by another court in the case Trump lost to New York Attorney General Letitia James.
In addition to the civil cases, Trump faces 91 felony charges in four different criminal cases.
