(ASSOCIATED PRESS) A New York appeals court on Monday agreed to hold off collection of former President Donald Trump’s $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days. If he does, it will stop the clock on collection and prevent the state from seizing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's assets while he appeals. The development came just before New York Attorney General Letitia James was expected to initiate efforts to collect the judgment. Messages seeking comment were sent to James' office and to Trump's lawyers. Trump’s lawyers had pleaded for a state appeals court to halt collection, claiming it was “a practical impossibility” to get an underwriter to sign off on a bond for such a large sum. The ruling was issued by the state’s intermediate appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state’s trial court, where Trump is fighting to overturn a judge’s Feb. 16 finding that he lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency. After James won the judgment, she didn't seek to enforce it during a legal time-out for Trump to ask the appeals court for a reprieve from paying up. That period ended Monday, though James could have decided to allow Trump more time. James, a Democrat, told ABC News last month that if Trump doesn't have the money to pay, she would seek to seize his assets and was "prepared to make sure that the judgment is paid.” She didn't detail the process or specify what holdings she meant, and her office has declined more recently to discuss its plans. Meanwhile, it has filed notice of the judgment, a technical step toward potentially moving to collect. As Trump arrived Monday at a different New York court for a separate hearing in his criminal hush money case, he didn't respond to a journalist's question about whether he'd obtained a bond. Earlier Monday, he railed in social media posts against the civil judgment and the possibility that James would seek to enforce it. Casting the case as a plot by Democrats, the ex-president asserted that they were trying to take his cash to starve his 2024 campaign. READ MORE: https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/nation-world/donald-trump-civil-fraud-judgment-deadline/507-ec6562e0-9291-4a47-b663-b7224cf188c3 (ASSOCIATED PRESS): A New York judge has scheduled an April 15 trial date in former President Donald Trump's hush money case. Judge Juan M. Merchan made the ruling Monday. The judge earlier had scolded the former president’s lawyers as he weighed when to reschedule the trial after a last-minute document dump caused a postponement of the original date. Merchan had bristled at what he suggested were baseless defense claims of “prosecutorial misconduct,” appearing unpersuaded by Trump team arguments that prosecutors had until recently concealed tens of thousands of pages of records from a previous federal investigation. Prosecutors said only a handful of those newly records was relevant to the case, while defense lawyers contended that thousands of pages are potentially important and require a painstaking review. Merchan, who earlier this month postponed the trial until at least mid-April, told defense lawyers that they should have acted much sooner if they believed they didn’t have all the records they felt they were entitled to. “That you don’t have a case right now is really disconcerting because the allegation that the defense makes in all of your papers is incredibly serious. Unbelievably serious,” Merchan said. “You’re accusing the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the people involved in this case of prosecutorial misconduct and of trying to make me complicit in it. And you don’t have a single cite to support that position.” The presumptive Republican presidential nominee arrived in court for a hearing scheduled in place of the long-planned start of jury selection in the first of his four criminal cases to go to trial. It took place on a uniquely consequential day for Trump and his legal and political affairs as, besides a likely determination of a trial date, a New York appeals court on Monday granted him a dose of good news by agreeing to hold off collection of his $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days. The hush money case, filed last year by prosecutors in Manhattan, has taken on added importance given that it’s the only one of the prosecutions against Trump that appears likely for trial in the coming months. READ MORE: https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/nation-world/trump-new-york-hush-money-case-new-trial-date/507-2dc1758c-939f-42c2-9d08-5f2163c77b2d