- cementing the nomination
- the new award dwarfs the $5 million
- defaming her
- deliberation
- punitive damage
- derogatory comment
- act maliciously
- confer with
- constrained in what he was allowed to say
- relitigate
- backdrop for the 2024 presidential race
- a torrent of online criticism and threats
- windfall
Jury Orders Trump to Pay E. Jean Carroll $83 Million for Defamation
Verdict adds to former president’s financial obligations after earlier jury said he must pay columnist $5 million
A federal jury ordered Donald Trump to pay more than $83 million in damages for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, handing the former president a financial and legal blow just as he moves closer to cementing the Republican nomination for November’s presidential election.
The award by the Manhattan jury came after a trial in which Carroll accused Trump of shattering her reputation while he was president by denying her claims of sexual assault. The new award dwarfs the $5 million that a different federal jury awarded to Carroll last year after finding Trump liable for sexually assaulting her in the 1990s and then defaming her when he denied it in 2022.
The jury of seven men and two women reached its verdict Friday after less than three hours of deliberation. Trump, 77 years old, who had attended the trial earlier in the day, wasn’t in the courtroom for the announcement. Carroll, 80, held hands with her lawyers before the verdict was read and then hugged them afterward.
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Carroll said the verdict was “a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.”
Trump in a statement called the verdict ridiculous and said he would appeal. “Our legal system is out of control, and being used as a political weapon,” he said.
The new verdict covers statements Trump made during his White House tenure in which he said Carroll, an author and former Elle magazine columnist, fabricated the assault to generate publicity for her new book.
Her lawyers asked for about $12 million to repair her reputation, at least another $12 million for emotional distress, plus unusually high punitive damages intended to stop Trump’s derogatory comments about Carroll, which he has continued to voice on social media and in campaign appearances while the proceedings were ongoing.
“How much will it take to make him stop?” Robbie Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, asked the jury.
Jurors ultimately awarded Carroll a total of $18.3 million in compensatory damages, $11 million of which was for repairing her reputation. The panel awarded her $65 million in punitive damages after finding that Trump acted maliciously.
The current trial, unlike the prior one, was marked by frequent appearances from Trump, who wasn’t required to attend but did so on most days, in what appeared to be a strategic choice to leverage his legal troubles to rally his supporters as he campaigns for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
When Carroll testified, Trump repeatedly shook his head and conferred with his attorney, prompting the writer’s lawyer to complain that his comments about a “con job” and “witch hunt” could be heard by the jury.
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On Thursday, Trump made the briefest of appearances on the witness stand and was constrained in what he was allowed to say. Because the earlier jury already found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a Manhattan department-store dressing room, the former president couldn’t attempt to relitigate that question now, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled.
Trump answered a handful of questions from his lawyer that had been approved by the judge, who then told jurors to disregard portions of the former president’s answers in which he again sought to deny the assault.
“We were stripped of every defense, every single defense, before we walked in there,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba said outside the courthouse Friday.
Kaplan warned Trump about his behavior several times during the trial, at one point threatening to exclude him from the courtroom. “I understand you’re probably very eager for me to do that,” Kaplan said.
“I would love it,” Trump replied, putting up his hands.
The case is one of a half dozen against Trump that are providing an unprecedented backdrop for the 2024 presidential race. In the coming days, a New York judge is expected to rule on civil claims by the state attorney general that Trump lied about his wealth to obtain better terms from bankers. The former president is also facing four separate criminal indictments.
Carroll’s lawyers argued that Trump had used his status as president to prompt a torrent of online criticism and threats from his supporters.
“Speaking from the White House, Donald Trump used the most famous platform on earth to lie about what he had done, to attack Ms. Carroll’s hard-earned integrity, and to falsely accuse her of inventing a terrible lie,” Shawn Crowley, a lawyer for Carroll, told the jury.
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Carroll, who spent about a day and a half on the stand, told the jury that comments by Trump in 2019, which came after New York Magazine published her claims, destroyed her reputation as a journalist and made her fear for her safety. She said she left her pit bull unleashed outside her home for protection and purchased bullets for the gun she keeps beside her bed.
The previous $5 million she won from Trump is currently being held in a court account while his appeal in that case is pending.
It isn’t clear whether Trump would have to go ahead and pay the $83 million award while he challenges it. It’s also unclear how much he has in liquid assets to cover it because a significant portion of his wealth is in real estate and operating businesses.
In his most recent financial disclosure from last year, Trump reported having at least $25.5 million in Treasury bills, more than $8 million in Treasury notes, more than $4 million in cash, millions more in municipal and corporate bonds, millions in stocks and more than $2 million in money-market accounts.
During closing arguments Friday morning, Trump stood up and left the courtroom unexpectedly after a lawyer for Carroll told jurors that the former president wasn’t above the law and had continued to attack her client.
Trump returned for the closing argument by Habba, who accused Carroll of wrongly blaming Trump for harassment she received on social media.
Not only did Carroll not suffer any harm due to Trump’s comments, but she had gained fame and status, Habba said. She told the jury that Carroll was looking for a windfall because people on the internet said mean things.
“This is about some people in their mothers’ basements who will always be mean on social media,” she said.
Richard Rubin contributed to this article.
Write to Corinne Ramey at corinne.ramey@wsj.com