The small fortune Donald Trump owes the state of New York has grown at breakneck speed, rising by another $1 million in interest every nine days as the former president appeals the $454 million civil fraud judgment set by a Manhattan judge back in February.
On Thursday, as his lawyers challenge the judgment in an appellate courtroom 40 blocks north of where it was handed down, the amount Trump owes the Empire state will have risen by $24 million.
That’s $24 million just in post-judgment interest.
It’s a massive added penalty. (For perspective, Trump’s 2016 settlements in three Trump University fraud cases totaled $25 million.)
When his appellate lawyers, led by D. John Sauer, walk into court at noon on Thursday, Trump’s debt to the New York attorney general’s office — the total on his owed-ometer — will have reached $478 million.
And that’s $478 million and counting. For the duration of his appeal efforts, what Trump owes the state of New York will continue to balloon by another $111,984 in interest every day.
It’s all part of the penalty for what the judge and state officials found was a decade of billion-dollar exaggerations in Trump’s annual financial statements.
“The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience,” New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, who has presided over the AG’s fraud case for more than five years, wrote in his verdict against Trump, his business, and his top executives.
Trump has denied any fraud, and his lawyers argue in their appeal that the judgment is unjustified, legally flawed, and excessive.
Winning on the state appellate level or, if that fails, in federal court would mean the judgment is reversed, and Trump’s massive accumulated debt to Attorney General Letitia James is erased.
(After the bench trial, Engoron hit Trump with an initial cash judgment of $355 million. That rose to $454 million on February 23, when retroactive interest was factored in, and a 9% annual interest rate was applied going forward.)
By winning his appeal, Trump would also dodge the judgment’s non-monetary punishments, which are many.
Trump would escape the constant gaze of the court-appointed fiscal watchdog monitoring the Trump Organization, Trump’s Manhattan-based real-estate and golf-resort empire, since November of 2022.
He’d no longer face having a yet-named compliance director preside over all major fiscal decisions.
Winning would mean Trump, Donald Trump, Jr., and Eric Trump would no longer face being banned for two years from running Trump Org or any other business in New York state. Gone, too, would be the judgment’s three-year ban on Trump and his companies applying for loans from any bank that operates in New York.
Trump would also get back the $175 million bond — plus more than a million dollars in interest — he had to post in order to hold the AG’s office at bay.
Losing, though, would deal a significant blow.
By appealing, Trump has kept all of these fraud punishments on ice, with the exception of the Trump Org monitoring, which is ongoing. If he exhausts his appeals and loses, those punishments would begin.
Losing would also mean the total amount he owes New York — an amount that would reach half a billion dollars if the appeal drags out into the Spring of 2025 — comes due immediately.
Read Trump’s 116-page appeal here.
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