I heard this morning that of 20 appellate court judges in NYC 19 are democratic appointed......and they STILL cut that absolutely ridiculous bond by 70%.
That judge and DA should be facing criminal charges.
To be fair, the sum of the bond is theirs to cut.
Similarly, it’s not the role of the trial court to declare that the amount of the appellate bond may diverge from the amount of the judgment determined at the conclusion of trial.
So, the ridiculousness of the $500 million dollar price of admission Trump needed to pay in advance (either in cash or by posting a bond) to get his case reviewed by the Appellate Division was a function of pre-determined law, not the caprice of Letitia James, or of Engoron the trial judge.
The latter, if a shred of justice remains in our system, should at some point in the future, the sooner the better, but at least eventually, find in their respective “inboxes” a near complete dismantling of the decision and monetary judgment handed down by Engoron.
In the meantime, broken clock Letitia James is correct: The amount of the judgment determined at the conclusion of trial remains at the level of approximately a half a billion. This despite the fact that the amount of the appellate bond (which if the appeal fails will be applied against the half billion) has just been reduced by the appellate division to a “mere” 175 million.
It’s been said that the Appellate Division foresaw that, had Trump been denied the ability to appeal the overall result of his case at trial because of his inability timely to deposit half a billion in bond or cash in escrow, popular sentiment would have overwhelmingly gone Trump’s way, making him a martyr.
Also, the utter hash James would have made in moving on and/or seizing Trump’s New York assets would have been galactic in scale. Better to save Letitia James from herself while Trump’s appeal proceeds.