It's mighty strange

A week ago, Justice Arthur Engoron released his decision on the penalties for the Kleptocrat’s civil fraud case brought by the New York Attorney General. This is for years of him and his companies systematically filing false statements of financial condition in order to receive billions of dollars in loans at favorable interest rates.

Rates he wouldn’t have got had the banks known what his true financial situation was.

Cadet Bonespurs was assessed slightly less than $355M and banned from holding any executive position at a New York-based company for three years. His two adult male spawn were fined $4M each and banned for two years. CFO Allan Weisselberg has to pony up a million and is banned for life (I think).

Here’s the deal, tho: interest for the various counts that led to the $355 Very Large has been accruing for years, because the clock starts ticking as of the time(s) of the crime(s). And New York’s interest rate for criming is a statutory 9%.

Now, the Kleptocrat and his lawyers have vowed on their mothers’ graves that they’ll appeal the decision. But if they want to do that, they have to put the full amount of the judgment ($355M for the big guy), plus the interest that’s been accruing since the teens, plus something like an extra 10% to cover the interest during the appeal period. That means, in effect, the guy who’s just been adjudged to be worth considerably less than the billions he’s touted is going to have to hawk up about half a billion dollars within 30 days—either from his own assets or paying a bonding agency. (If he can find one to take him on, since he’s been known for decades for stiffing, well, everyone.)

This is on top of the $88.3M he has to post for his appeal of the E. Jean Carroll cases and the tens of millions he’ll owe his various attorneys this year. (Last year’s legal bills topped $50M.)

So, of course, today’s earworm is Eric Clapton’s “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out”.

FAFO, baby. FAFO.