Trump posts $91.6 million bond, appeals E. Jean Carroll verdict

Former President Donald Trump on Friday appealed a civil defamation verdict in favor of writer E. Jean Carroll, and posted a $91.6 million bond as he asked to avoid having to pay damages he owes her as he pursues that appeal.

The appeal came days before Trump faced a deadline to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll for defaming her in 2019, when as president, he first denied her allegation that he had raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

The $91.6 million bond he posted is meant to secure that damage award in the event his appeal of January’s jury verdict fails. Trump will get the money from the bond back if he wins his appeal.

Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan on Thursday denied a request by Trump to delay paying Carroll.

The bond was issued by Federal Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Chubb Insurance Company, based in Chesapeake, Virginia, according to a copy of the document Trump signed. It represents 110% of the total damages awarded to Carroll in the case, which reflects the fact that the damage award is increased by 9% annually under New York law.

A court filing about the bond did not reveal how much Trump either paid, or put up as collateral, to obtain it.

Trump is also appealing another Manhattan federal civil verdict, reached last year, which ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million in damages for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s and then defaming her in comments he made in 2022.

As part of that other appeal, he posted $5.6 million cash with the court to secure the damages he owes.

Trump is also appealing a recent New York state court judge’s verdict ordering him to pay more than $450 million in fines and interest to the state for fraudulently inflating his net worth and property values for years on financial records.

An appeals court judge last week rejected Trump’s request to post a bond of just $100 million to secure those damages as he seeks to overturn the verdict. A panel of appellate judges has yet to rule on that request.

Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, separately faces 91 criminal counts in four separate cases. He has pleaded not guilty in all of those cases.