A lawyer for former President Donald Trump asked Judge Lewis Kaplan to postpone the $83.3 million judgment in his defamation case, which was brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll, for a fortnight. Alternatively, the attorney requested that Kaplan allow Trump to post a bond for “an appropriate fraction” of the total damages.
Alina Habba, the attorney for Trump, submitted the application on Friday. She asked for a partially secured stay while Trump posts a lower bail, or she asked for a stay until 30 days after the decision of her client’s post-trial motions, which were filed in early March.
“There is a strong probability that the disposition of post-trial motions will substantially reduce, if not eliminate, the amount of the judgment,” Habba said in her application.
Habba wrote about Carroll’s emotional suffering after Trump’s remarks, stating that “Plaintiff failed to offer any evidence that her alleged distress was of any significant severity or duration, or that it resulted in any medical, physical, or clinical consequences—or even any extreme emotional effects.”
Habba proposed that the court estimate a $22.25 million decrease in the entire judgment, for which Trump may provide a $24.475 million bail.
“The amount given to Ms. Carroll is blatantly exorbitant,” Habba told ABC News in a statement. “The Court must exercise its authority to prevent Ms. Carroll from enforcing this absurd judgment, which will not withstand appeal.”
The request is made in the midst of two expensive litigation proceedings in New York that have brought the former president’s money back into the public eye. The ruling in Trump’s civil fraud case—in which he owes $355 million in fines and around $100 million in interest—was entered by the Supreme Court of New York on Friday.