Trump fraud-trial lawyers distance themselves from Alina Habba in fighting $7,500 frivolous-filings sanctions from 2023

• Donald Trump's civil-fraud-trial lawyers are appealing their $7,500 sanctions for filing frivolous motions.
• They say prior sanctions for lawyering by Alina Habba were improperly used against them.

It's been 10 months since Donald Trump's New York civil-fraud defense lawyers were ordered to pay $7,500 each in sanctions for filing repetitive and frivolous legal motions.

In appealing those sanctions this week, the lawyers now argue that New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron wrongly tarred them and their former cocounsel Alina Habba with the same brush.

The brief argues that in sanctioning the civil-fraud defense lawyers in September, the judge improperly referenced two prior Habba matters that resulted in sanctions for her and Trump.

One was Trump's $10,000-a-day contempt-of-court fine for flouting subpoenas in 2022, and the other was the nearly $1 million in sanctions a Florida judge ordered Trump and Habba pay for filing a meritless lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and 30 others.

Engoron had mentioned both Habba cases when he sanction-slapped the civil-fraud-trial lawyers in a sweeping pre-trial order that, more significantly, found Trump liable for lying to banks and insurers about his worth for a decade.

Engoron said the Habba cases were proof that Trump, his real-estate company, and his key long-standing executives "are no strangers to sanctions" and should have known better.

These attorneys think otherwise.

This week's appellate brief counters that Engoron "is without authority or rational basis to punish Counsel for conduct that they did not engage in."

Habba wasn't among the five fraud-trial defense lawyers hit with the small, largely symbolic sanctions last September because her name wasn't on the motions Engoron attacked as "frivolous."

The five Trump cocounsel who are appealing the sanctions are Clifford Robert, Michael Farina, Christopher Kise, Armen Morian, and Michael Madaio, who's a partner at Habba's law firm in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Two footnotes in the appellate brief stress that Robert, Farina, Kise, and Morian — the four not connected to Habba — weren't involved in the subpoena or Florida sanction cases.

"To the extent that Supreme Court considered awards of sanctions against President Trump or other members of his legal team in separate cases, for entirely distinct conduct or in matters pending outside of this jurisdiction, as a factor in its determination that Counsel engaged in frivolous conduct or its calculation of an appropriate penalty, Supreme Court clearly abused its discretion," the brief says.

The appeal also argues that it was OK to repeat already-rejected legal arguments during different phases of the case. That's because each time they were raised — in seeking a preliminary injunction, in a motion to dismiss, and in a motion for summary judgment — there was a different "standard of review."

In fact, the lawyers replayed the same batch of arguments again in another newly filed brief appealing the judgment itself.

These include the oft-repeated defense claims that the fraud case was too old, that any fraud was victimless, and that Trump was a "visionary" real-estate magnate whose sky-high valuations of his properties' worth eventually proved true.

Lawyers for state Attorney General Letitia James, whose office brought the fraud allegations and took Trump to trial last year, have yet to respond to the appellate briefs, and oral arguments haven't been scheduled. Habba and other Trump lawyers didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the appeal.

A nearly $500 million judgment — set by Engoron in February against Trump, The Trump Organization, and key longtime executives — remains on hold during Trump's appeal.

The judgment came after Trump was found to have wildly inflated the value of his properties in annual financial statements sent to lenders, insurers, and tax authorities for a decade.

The total Trump owes the state of New York increases by another $1 million in interest every nine days. The amount had grown to $489 million by Tuesday, according to a penalty calculator maintained by the Associated Press.

Of that sum, Trump personally owes $471 million, as of Tuesday, including $17 million in post-judgment interest.