Trump hired executive for KC-based firm in failed search for $500m bond in fraud case

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump said on Monday that he failed to secure a roughly $500 million bond in the New York civil fraud case against him, after a search led by an executive for Kansas City-headquartered Lockton Companies.

An executive of Lockton, one of the largest privately-held insurance brokerages, was hired by Trump to help him obtain a bond to cover the $464 million judgment entered against Trump, the Trump Organization and other defendants by New York Justice Arthur Engoron last month. Engoron found Trump had lied for years about his wealth.

Lockton’s northeast president, Gary Giuletti, in an affidavit filed in court on Monday, wrote that he and others had worked for weeks to try to obtain a bond for Trump. The former president, who is appealing Engoron’s decision, needs a bond to cover the judgment to prevent the seizure of his assets as the court process plays out.

“Despite scouring the market, we have been unsuccessful in our effort to obtain a bond for the Judgment Amount for Defendants for the simple reason that obtaining an appeal bond for $464 million is a practical impossibility under the circumstances presented,” Giuletti wrote.

Lockton’s United States headquarters is on the Country Club Plaza, though the company has offices around the world. Lockton was founded by University of Missouri-Kansas City graduate Jack Lockton in the 1960s.

Giuletti is based in Hartford, Connecticut, according to Lockton’s website, though the affidavit gave the location of Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, the same location listed on his LinkedIn profile.

He wrote that the team working for Trump reached out to “virtually every major surety” in the market and spent “countless hours” negotiating with one of the largest insurance companies in the world. He didn’t name the company.

Only a handful of companies are approved by the U.S. Treasury Department to underwrite bonds for a sum as large as the judgment amount, Giuletti wrote. Many have internal policies significantly limiting the amount of a bond they will write for a single obligation, he wrote, noting that he understands that generally the companies will only issue single bonds of up to $100 million.

None of the companies will accept real estate and other hard assets as collateral, Giuletti wrote, including well-known companies such as Berkshire Hathaway and Liberty Mutual.

“Simply put, a bond of this size is rarely, if ever, seen,” Giuletti wrote.

If Trump is unable to obtain a bond by March 25, New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who brought the case against him, can begin to seek enforcement of the massive judgment against him.

The civil fraud judgment against Trump is one in a string of civil and criminal cases against him. Trump, who effectively secured the Republican nomination for president last week, may go on trial in New York as early as April over charges related to hush money payments to an adult film actress during his 2016 campaign.