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Trump’s NYC hush money, fraud cases could reach boiling point Monday

Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media after voting at a polling station setup in the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Center on March 19,
2024, in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

By Molly Crane-Newman | mcranenewman@nydailynews.com | New York Daily News

PUBLISHED: March 24, 2024 at 4:07 p.m. | UPDATED: March 24, 2024 at 5:31 p.m.

Donald Trump’s New York legal troubles are expected to reach a boiling point Monday in Manhattan,
where he’s poised to make a last-ditch attempt to dodge legal jeopardy in the Stormy Daniels hush
money saga — and faces the end of a grace period in his separate civil fraud case to put up a bond of
almost half a billion dollars.

The former president and Republican frontrunner in this year’s election is expected to return to Judge
Juan Merchan’s 15th-floor courtroom at Manhattan Supreme Court with his lawyers in the hush
money case a source familiar with his plans told the Daily News, with jury selection delayed over a
,

blizzard of paperwork tied to star witness Michael Cohen.

Trump’s lawyers say thousands of documents turned over by federal prosecutors in the Southern
District of New York tied to his ex-fixer’s years-old and highly publicized conviction contain
exculpatory evidence the Manhattan district attorney’s office was required to obtain and provide him
by law.

Prosecutors contend a minuscule percentage of the paperwork is relevant that the tranche handed ,

over in response to an eleventh-hour subpoena by Trump mainly represents duplicates of what they
gave him last year and that his outrage is just intended to delay the case.

Michael Cohen leaves Trump’s civil fraud trial at New York State Supreme Court in October 2023.(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty
Images)

In an order earlier last week, Judge Merchan adjourned the trial — expected to be Trump’s first of four
— until at least mid-April and said he’d set a new date “if necessary” after resolving the dispute over
the documents.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in his Manhattan
criminal case. The charges allege that he hid a series of checks to Cohen in 2017 to disguise that they
came as reimbursement for a payoff to Daniels in a broader scheme to secure his 2016 presidential
victory. Cohen in 2018 pleaded guilty to breaking campaign finance laws and other crimes in a federal
case and served three years in custody. The feds implicated then-President Trump but declined to
press charges under a Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

Meanwhile, the grace period for Trump to secure with the court more than $454 million in fines he
was ordered to pay last month ends around Monday. If he fails to cough up the cash, he can keep on
appealing. But state Attorney General Tish James’ office may start going after prized assets in his
portfolio while the process plays out if she’s not confident he’ll satisfy the judgment if he loses his
appeal. It’s not clear what the AG’s intentions are.

She may wait to see how a mid-level appeals court rules on Trump’s outstanding request to pause
Judge Arthur Engoron’s devastating Feb. 16 judgment from taking effect while he fights it, a move that
she has opposed. Trump’s defense team previously failed to convince the appeals court to let him post
less than a quarter of the amount he owes. Last week, they said 30 lenders rejected his request for the
total amount or to consider his namesake properties as collateral.

People walk by 40 Wall St., a Trump-owned building in lower Manhattan. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Engoron’s ruling determined Trump, his former finance execs Allen Weisselberg and Jeff McConney
and sons Eric and Don Jr. intentionally committed fraud in New York’s real estate market for years by
inflating his net worth by up to $3.6 billion annually to secure more favorable terms in business deals.

Trump, 77, ramped up his online attacks against New York officials on Friday, claiming he had “almost”
$500 million in cash days after his attorneys said he couldn’t post a bond for less than that amount,
describing the outcome of his almost three-month civil fraud trial as “COMMUNISM” and bashing
Engoron and James.

“Arthur Engoron is a Rogue Judge who was intimidated by the big, nasty, and ugly mouth of Leticia
James, considered by many to be the WORST Attorney General in the U.S. She is a Low IQ individual
who campaigned for Governor, using my name, and got TROUNCED,” Trump wrote on his social media
site.

While his legal battles have intensified, Trump has continued to beat President Biden in key polls. A
CNN survey released Friday put him eight percentage points ahead of Biden in Michigan and placed
them neck-and-neck in Pennsylvania.

Also on Friday, Trump’s media outfit was approved to go public following a merger deal with a publicly
traded shell company. His net worth stands to go up as much as $3 billion — a huge boon amid his legal
woes — but not before Monday.

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2024 March 24

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