Trump has repeatedly disparaged Carroll after she accused him of raping her.
NEW YORK — A jury ordered Donald Trump on Friday to pay $83.3 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll over defamatory remarks he made about her while he was president in response to her rape accusation.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled last fall that Trump defamed Carroll by saying in 2019 that he had never met her and that her book, in which she accused him of having raped her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in the mid-1990s, “should be sold in the fiction section.”
The only question for the nine-person jury to decide was how much in damages Trump should pay. After deliberating for three hours, the jury ordered Trump to pay $18.3 million in punitive damages and $65 million in compensatory damages.
Compensatory damages compensate a plaintiff for harm or other losses they have suffered. Punitive damages are awards intended to punish the defendant for their conduct.
During their closing arguments Friday, Carroll’s lawyers encouraged the jury to order an “unusually high” punitive damages award, both because of Trump’s wealth and because he has continued to repeatedly disparage Carroll, including in comments during the trial on social media and in a press conference.
Friday’s award comes on top of a $5 million penalty a separate jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll in a trial last year in which Trump was found liable for sexual abuse regarding Carroll’s rape claims and for defamation for other comments he made about her in 2022.
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Trump ordered to pay $83.3 million for defaming E. Jean Carroll https://t.co/ifNQSxe1MX
— POLITICO (@politico) January 26, 2024
Judge Kaplan, to jurors: "My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury."
— erica orden (@eorden) January 26, 2024
Trump now has:
91 felony counts
11 aides convicted
4 indictments
2 impeachments
$83.3 million defamation verdict
$25 million fraud judgment
$5 million sexual assault verdict
$1.6 million tax fraud conviction
A university shut down
A charity shut down
And is on trial for fraud. https://t.co/8F1vFHIAEH— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) January 26, 2024
Scary the judge has to give this warning. https://t.co/x81n7cjIED
— Cherry🍒 (@misscherryjones) January 26, 2024
It was something to think about the first time, too https://t.co/lIXhbWGFiO
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 26, 2024
JUST IN: Former President Trump says he’ll appeal "ridiculous" E. Jean Carroll defamation ruling https://t.co/NI8S5EUtDk
— The Hill (@thehill) January 26, 2024
“All of us”
It seems the vast, vast majority of men manage to get through life without raping anyone, let alone raping someone and then repeatedly defaming them. https://t.co/IOe80oQGvv
— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) January 26, 2024
To make the obvious explicit: The judge is taking for granted that the jurors would be subject to a torrent of harrassment, threats, and possibly physical attacks from deranged supporters of the former president, who would do absolutely nothing to discourage it. https://t.co/MoQVGlhWKU
— Julian Sanchez (@normative) January 26, 2024
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