According to more than one legal scholar, Judge Arthur Engoron's comprehensive 92-page opinion following the Donald Trump financial fraud trial is so concise, bulletproof, and detailed that it will withstand any appeal the former president may make to avoid paying the nearly half billion dollars he has been ordered to pay.
With the clock ticking that sets up a scenario where, should Trump be unable to secure an appeals bond in the next few weeks, Engoron will be in the position where he can order the seizure of one or more Trump properties to ensure his debt to society is paid.
In interviews with the Daily Beast's Jose Pagliery, a Brooklyn Law School appeals expert and a former prosecutor teaching at the esteemed John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York praised Engoron's precisely written opinion that would remove the need by any appeals court to have to peruse the entire 6,758-page trial transcript from the 11-week trial.
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According to Brooklyn Law's Jennifer B. Arlin, "The reason why this opinion is so long and so specific is to emphasize to the appellate court how much care the judge took in issuing this decision."
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John Jay's Diane Peress agreed and explained, "It's so well laid out that it says, ‘Go ahead—challenge me.' I think it's very smartly done, because it really shows that he didn’t just say, ‘Hey, half a billion dollars, whatever.’ It shows that he based it on fact, on law.”
What that means, explained the Daily Beast's Pagliery is that Trump is likely in a corner with an immovable deadline looming to come up with the massive appeals bond soon before Engoron takes action.
"In mid-March, Engoron can greenlight the AG forcefully grabbing Trump brand properties and putting them up for auction. It's looking increasingly likely that Trump will actually have to come up with the money anyway to stop that," he wrote before adding, "But legal observers are particularly interested in what happens if Trump continues with his appeal without trying to stay the execution of the judgment—an awkward scenario in which the AG seizes a Trump building or golf course even as he fights the legal battle in higher courts."
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