The judgment was formally registered in a New York county this month, records show.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has taken initial steps in New York’s Westchester County to prepare to seize former President Donald Trump’s properties after a state judge ordered him to pay a $455 million fine in a civil fraud case.
Several judgments were entered by Ms. James, a Democrat, with the Westchester County Clerk’s Office against the former president and his sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, on March 6. The three judgments filed in the county by the attorney general against President Trump amounted to $243,326,767.10, $20,421,141.98, and $63,580,273.97.
In Westchester County, located just north of New York City, the former president’s company owns the Seven Springs estate and the Trump National Golf Course Westchester.
The judgments came about a week after Judge Arthur Engoron fined the former president, his two sons, and other Trump Organization officials, claiming they defrauded banks and insurance companies by inflating their properties’ values.
The former U.S. president faces a Monday deadline to post a bond covering a $454 million civil judgment against him for overstating his net worth and the value of his real estate properties to dupe investors and lenders, or risk state authorities seizing his assets while he appeals.
The registrations do not necessarily mean that seizures of the Westchester properties are imminent. But they are a procedural step that would be necessary should Ms. James seek to seize them in the future. The attorney general said in February that she would be prepared to seize the former president’s properties if he cannot pay the civil fraud debt.
Neither Ms. James nor the former president’s lawyers have publicly commented on the judgments entered in Westchester County, which were first reported by multiple news outlets such as Reuters and Bloomberg on Wednesday.
Before a three-month, non-jury trial in Manhattan, Justice Engoron found that President Trump had engaged in fraud by overvaluing properties including Seven Springs, as well as better-known properties such as his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and his penthouse apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower. The judge wrote that he believed President Trump fraudulently inflated the value of Seven Springs by more than 400 percent in 2014.
The former president has denied wrongdoing, saying that the judge is a “political hack” who is working in concert with Democrats to undermine his Republican presidential candidacy.
