2y ago

Donald Trump fined $10,000 for second gag order violation in civil fraud case

www.reuters.com

Justice Arthur Engoron on Oct. 3 barred Trump from disparaging court staff after Trump shared on social media a photo of the judge's top clerk posing with U.S. Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, and falsely called her Schumer's "girlfriend."

During a trial break on Wednesday in the civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James concerning Trump's business practices, Trump told reporters, "This judge is a very partisan judge, with a person who's very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is."

Engoron, surmising that Trump was referring to his clerk, called the comments a "blatant" violation of the gag order. The judge imposed the fine after Trump briefly took the witness stand to take questions.

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kescusay @lemmy.world

2y ago

Donald Trump fined $10,000 for second gag order violation in civil fraud case

www.reuters.com /legal/donald-trump-michael-cohen-face-off-again-new-york-fraud-trial-2023-10-25/

56 comments

Wow. Isn't that like fining the regular Joe 2 bucks? Must be devastating and lifestyle-changing.
- The first fine was 5k. This is 10k.
  Doubling can get pretty nasty, pretty fast. Let's hope he sticks to it.
  
  He'd have to do it 16 12 times for doubling to touch just 1% of his reported net worth.
  (I have zero interest debating what his actual net worth is. Don't @ me.)
  Edited to correct math.
  
  10'000 is to a billionaire what 10 is to a millionaire. Or cents to some random person.I hope that gets the point across just how irrelevant that number is.
  
  They should up it to a cookie million next time to give him a jolt
  
  Oh sorry. I didn't know. Well, that changes everything. Poor guy, and i was mocking him 😣
- Sure, but what is the penalty for not paying (as Trump has a long history of doing)?
  
  I looked it up, and the penalty is imprisonment until the fine is paid. If the fine is never paid, it ticks down with time served (looks like double-digit dollars forgiven per day).
- Let's say Trump is worth $1 billion. (He claims he's worth much more, but reports say he's worth much less.) The super rich skew the average net worth, but it looks like the median American is worth $193,000.
  At those amounts, $10,000 for Trump is like $1.93 to the "median American."
  I can only hope that the fines increase by a lot more or jail time starts getting added to the mix.
And the consequences if he refuses to pay?
- $5 late fee
- When you refuse to pay court-ordered fines my understanding is that they send bailiffs to physically take your property away so it can be sold to cover it.
- Worst (best?) case, he's thrown in jail until he pays. Not paying is contempt of court
  
  Not paying is contempt of court
  Yeah, but so was violating the gag order.
  If he isn't jailed on a third strike, I'm done following this.
Losing time rather than money would be a stronger punishment for that kind of person, so lock him up for a while where he cannot enjoy any luxuries.
- As if he would have the same jail-experience like regular joe. It would be worse than home, but probably still more comfortable than us in our homes. At least I'm having a hard time imagining it would not be... Maybe I'm just too cynical.
My hope is that Engoron is baiting him to say/do more egregious things to really justify a proper sentence, because he knows Trump will keep pushing the envelope. But Occam's Razor suggests he might just be cowardly.
Come on Engoron, defy the razor. Show us all what you got.
- Be the razor.
  
  Admeral Caine stares are you intensly as she asks the marine for his sidearm
- Law of three strikes, or something like that? He now has had two warnings.
  
  One can only hope. I'm sure we won't have to wait long to find out.
$10,000 now? Yeah that'll teach him. Mostly it'll just teach him that violating court orders comes with a small price tag and he could do it a hundred more times.
Let's just hope that when it happens again he actually gets to sit in a godamn jail for a change, clearly taking the loose change out of his pocket isn't doing the job.
- He is going ballistic so it does have an effect on him
  
  Link?
- Now wait until he doesn't pay it
Perhaps a week or so in jail will clean up his behavior.
- Or, you know. The rest of his life,
  
  Yeah but that happens after the trial.
- Imo they haven't simply because if Trump is in jail, so is his Secret Service detail ... and that's a shit show nobody wants to deal with right now.
  
  We should just build a cell in the white house. A super secret cell with tunnels and bunkers and shit. Everyone knows it's there, but they say it's impossible to figure out where it is. There's only one entrance inside the white house somewhere that only 3 secret service agents know about.
  And the sitting president can stream footage online if they wanted.
  
  if Trump is in jail, so is his Secret Service detail
  It's not like they'll be in the cell with him.
  And it'll be a lot easier for them to keep him protected if he's locked up. (Clearly they'll never put someone like this in general population where some random gangbanger can get at him.)
  
  Nah, take him to a cell in some place like Leavenworth where they've already got plenty of security. No sense in wasting money on extra personnel when they can just house him with other high security felons.
So… barely a tap on the wrist… and after his SECOND violation, no less.
- My only hope is that the judge is laying a "fair fine" foundation so that any future jail time is appeal proof. If Trump tries to appeal being sent to jail, the judge would be able to say "I gave him a warning. I gave a fine. I have him a slightly larger fine. I gave him more fines. Finally, I had no choice, but to go with jail time."
  
  Yeah, that's pretty likely - also the judge probably doesn't want those hacks on the Supreme Court to have the slightest figleaf of an excuse to stick their noses into this on appeal.
Sometimes I just pay the parking ticket.
Stop charging the wealthy guy a fee that allows him to do what he wants and just make him sit facing the corner for half an hour if you want him to learn.
The fine should be multiplied by 10 each time he/him violate the gag order.
He'll do it again
Throw his ass in jail

56 comments