Donald Trump to pay Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation 

A federal jury ruled on Friday that former US President Donald Trump must pay $83.3 million in damages for defamatory statements he made denying he sexually assaulted the writer E. Jean Carroll.

According to CBS, the jury awarded Carroll $18.3 million in compensatory damages, and $65 million in punitive damages. The compensatory amount included $11 million for repairing her reputation, and $7.3 million for emotional harm.

Carroll’s attorneys asked the jury to award $24 million in compensatory damages. The lawyer, Roberta Kaplan said the punitive amount should be enough to “make him stop” defaming her client.

After the verdict was read aloud in federal court in lower Manhattan, Carroll emerged from the courthouse smiling and flanked by her legal team. 

She declined to speak to a crush of cameras and reporters gathered outside, but issued a statement later, saying, “This is 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.”

Reacting to the verdict on social media, Trump who is contesting the US President he lost to Joe Biden, four years ago, called the judicial system “Broken and Unfair!”

A longtime advice columnist, Carroll wrote a story in New York magazine in 2019 accusing Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. 

Trump, who was president at the time, immediately denied the allegations, calling Carroll a “whack job” and claiming he had never met her. 

He would go on to repeat similar denials in public appearances, social media posts and even in court, a pattern cited by Carroll’s attorneys during the trial.

Carroll filed two defamation lawsuits over comments Trump made in 2019 and 2022, arguing his disparagements ruined her reputation and subjected her to endless streams of threats. 

In the trial to resolve Carroll’s first suit in May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse, and awarded Carroll $5 million.

Before the second trial got underway, the judge ruled that Carroll was telling the truth about the assault, and that Trump’s statements denying her claims were defamatory. The jury was tasked only with deciding what damages Carroll was entitled to receive. 

The jurors’ $83 million decision came just days after Trump won the New Hampshire primary, solidifying his status as the front-runner to become the Republican presidential nominee.

Minutes after the verdict was handed down, the former president, who had already left the courthouse, issued a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social.

“Absolutely ridiculous!” Trump wrote. “I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”