A judge in New York has ruled that former president Donald Trump can avoid contempt of court if he pays a fine and jumps through a couple of other hoops.
New York Justice Arthur F. Engoron determined that Trump’s team had done almost everything they needed to do to remove themselves from contempt of court and the $10,000 daily fine that goes along with it, reports Frank G. Runyeon at Law360.
If Trump pays the $110,000 in fines that have accrued to date, his team sufficiently explains their processes for keeping and destroying documents, and authorities can examine some more boxes of documents, he will be out of contempt of court that stemmed from his staff’s failure to comply with the New York attorney general’s subpoena of documents relating to the investigation of the Trump Organization.
“The $110,000 should be paid to the attorney general to purge the contempt,” Engoron ruled after the Trump Organization filed affidavits on Friday that stopped the accrual of daily contempt fines even as they “complied in significant part but not completely” with the subpoena.
Engoron gave Trump a May 20 deadline to comply with the conditions. The fine will be held in escrow until Trump fulfills the stipulations of the ruling.
“I’m going to issue a conditional order, so don’t get all excited until we get to the substance of it,” the judge remarked.
The attorney general of New York has been investigating whether the Trump Organization fudged the value of real estate holdings in order to get tax breaks and favorable loans.
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