Donald Trump has won a bid to pause his $454m (€418m) civil fraud judgment if he posts a $175m (€161m) bond within ten days, a victory for the former US president that blocks New York state authorities from beginning to seize his assets.
The decision by a mid-level state appeals court eases an acute cash crunch for Mr Trump, who has said he would be forced to sell assets at "fire sale prices" to post bond in the case.
If Mr Trump posts bond by the new deadline, state authorities will not be able to start seizing his assets.
The mid-level state appellate court granted Mr Trump's request to delay enforcement of a 16 February judgment against him for overstating his net worth and the value of his real estate properties to dupe investors and lenders while it considers his appeal in the case.
"I greatly respect the decision of the appellate division and I'll post either the $175m in cash or bonds or securities or whatever is necessary, very quickly," Mr Trump told reporters at a New York courthouse where he was appearing in a separate criminal case.
Mr Trump, seeking to regain the presidency this year, had said on social media that he could be forced to sell assets at potentially "fire sale prices" to post bond in the case pursued by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Mr Trump is the Republican candidate challenging Democratic President Joe Biden in the 5 November US election.
Before the pause was granted, Mr Trump had until yesterday (Monday) to pay before Ms James could have asked a court to start seizing his assets to satisfy the judgment, including prized real estate holdings like 40 Wall Street in Manhattan.
Mr Trump continues having to balance raising money for both his campaign and his legal expenses - costs that are likely to rise as he faces four upcoming criminal trials. Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty in the criminal cases and has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases.
In the New York civil case, Mr Trump was found liable for fraudulently inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to secure better loan and insurance terms. He has said the case is a political vendetta by Ms James, a Democrat who filed the civil suit in 2022.
Before a three-month, non-jury trial in Manhattan, Justice Arthur Engoron found Mr Trump had engaged in fraud by overvaluing properties including his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, his penthouse apartment in Manhattan's Trump Tower, and various office buildings and golf courses. The trial focused primarily on how much he should pay in penalties.
Mr Trump in another case on 8 March posted a $91.6m (€84.5m) bond to cover an $83.3m (€76.8m) defamation verdict for writer E. Jean Carroll, who said he defamed her by branding her a liar after she accused him of raping her decades ago. Mr Trump has denied wrongdoing and is appealing.
The criminal cases Mr Trump faces stem from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden, his handling of classified documents after leaving office in 2021, and hush money paid before his 2016 election to an adult film star who said she had a sexual encounter with him years earlier.
Mr Trump's lawyers sought a delay in a New York state criminal trial over hush money paid to Stormy Daniels, disclosing that new federal documents had emerged.
The documents include prior statements Ms Daniels previously made to the FBI, Mr Trump's lawyer Todd Blanche told Justice Juan Merchan. It was not immediately clear how many documents would be handed over.
Mr Trump's criminal trial on charges tied to the hush money will start on 15 April, a judge said, paving the way for the Republican presidential candidate to either be convicted or cleared before the November election.
The date all but ensures that Mr Trump will become the first-ever former US president to face a criminal trial.
He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen's $130,000 (€120,000) payment to silence Ms Daniels before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says they had a decade earlier - an encounter Mr Trump denies.
Jury selection for the case was initially scheduled to begin, but Justice Merchan on 15 March delayed it for at least 30 days after Mr Trump's lawyers accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, which brought the charges, of trying to bury documents that could help them challenge Mr Cohen's credibility.
The documents came from the US Attorney's office in Manhattan, which previously investigated the payment but did not charge Mr Trump. Mr Cohen testified that Mr Trump directed him to make the payment and went to prison after pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws.
At a court hearing in a New York state court in Manhattan, Justice Merchan appeared sceptical of Trump lawyer Todd Blanche's argument that Mr Bragg's office engaged in misconduct, and questioned MR Blanche about why he did not request documents from the US Attorney's office sooner.
Mr Blanche said at the hearing that the US Attorney's office said on Sunday that it would be handing over additional documents related to Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
Prosecutors say the Daniels payoff was part of a broader "catch-and-kill" scheme Mr Cohen and Mr Trump hatched to boost his candidacy by buying the silence of people with damaging information.
Mr Trump's lawyers say the payment was meant to spare himself and his family embarrassment, not to benefit his 2016 campaign.
Mr Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges of violating campaign finance laws through the payment.
Mr Trump's defence lawyers in January subpoenaed the US Attorney's office in Manhattan, which charged Mr Cohen, for Mr Cohen's bank records and phone and email accounts in January. Justice Merchan in December denied their request to get some of those materials from Mr Cohen himself.
The federal prosecutors handed over the material during the first two weeks of March.
In pushing the judge for a delay, Mr Trump's lawyers said they need more time to review the documents and accused Mr Bragg's office, which brought the charges, of trying to bury material that they could use to undermine Mr Cohen's credibility.
Mr Bragg's office said it asked the federal prosecutors for information from their case against Mr Cohen and turned the materials over to the defence last June. They said no further delay was needed because most of the new documents are irrelevant or duplicates of material Mr Trump already had.
Mr Trump called the case a politically motivated "witch hunt" and said this morning that it should be dismissed.
"No crime," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
