With hours left in his presidency, Donald J. Trump pardoned a long list of people. Prominent among them was his former chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, who had been indicted by federal prosecutors in Manhattan for conspiracy to defraud lenders to build a wall along the Mexican border.
This week, the lawyers who helped him secure his freedom in 2021 won a judgment against him for nearly $500,000 in unpaid legal fees.
The New York firm of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP. did mr. Bannon went to court in Manhattan in February for failing to pay more than half of what he owed them. Mr. Bannon had paid just $375,000 of more than $850,000 in legal fees he incurred over two years, the law firm said.
The injunction against Mr Bannon is just the latest legal woe the right-wing pundit and podcaster has faced in recent years. The company also worked for him during an investigation by the former Manhattan district attorney into Mr. Trump, court documents said. His lawyers helped Mr. Bannon in fighting a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the January 6 riot and then represented him in criminal contempt suits when he defied it.
In Friday’s order, the judge, Arlene P. Bluth, ordered him to pay the company what he owed, plus 1 percent interest. She also ordered him to pay “reasonable legal fees” for her lawsuit.
Jeffrey Citron, a managing partner at the firm, said in a statement Tuesday that it was unfortunate that it had to sue to get paid for representing Mr Bannon in “his various legal troubles”.
“The company intends to take every opportunity to collect,” he added.
His current attorney, Harlan Protass, said in an emailed statement: “The judge’s decision was clearly wrong and we intend to appeal it immediately.”
Mr Bannon had argued that he had told the company to stop representing him in January 2022 and that it had been working on cases beyond what he had engaged it for. The judge ruled that their signed agreement did not limit what business the company would work on, and that Mr. Bannon could not evade his accounts.
“The defendant cannot receive the benefit of legal representation from the plaintiff and then insist that he not have to pay for it,” she wrote.
In the case for which Mr. Bannon was pardoned, prosecutors said he siphoned off more than $1 million for personal and other expenses from donors who believed the money would go to We Build the Wall Inc. went, to build a barrier along the southern border with Mexico. The group raised more than $25 million. Much of it ended up in the pockets of the founders.
Mr. Bannon’s pardon has been questioned by government watchdog groups and by Mr Trump’s critics, as well as some of his allies. Three other men were charged with him, but none were pardoned by the president.
Two of the men, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, pleaded guilty to donor bilking in 2022. In April, Mr Badolato was sentenced to three years in prison and Mr Kolfage to four years and three months.
A third man, Timothy Shea, was convicted in a retrial in October of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to launder money and forgery of documents for his actions, and is still awaiting sentencing.
Mr. Bannon’s troubles with the Wall – and his lawyers – are not over.
In September, he pleaded not guilty to charges in Manhattan that largely mirrored the facts of the sunk federal case. He is again accused of defrauding donors.
He faces two counts of money laundering, two counts of conspiracy and one count of fraud, and faces a maximum sentence of five to 15 years on the most serious charge. He called the allegations “all nonsense.”
In January, the attorney for Mr. Bannon, David Schoen, the judge overseeing the case to withdraw, citing “a complete breakdown in communication” with Mr. Bannon.
