A jury in New York on Friday ordered former US president and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump to pay US$83.3 million to compensate writer E. Jean Carroll, whom he was found to have sexually assaulted and defamed.
The civil order, which prompted an audible gasp in the federal court, far exceeds the more than US$10 million in damages for defamation that Carroll had sought.
Trump lashed out almost immediately, calling the verdict “ridiculous” in a statement and promising to appeal.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The jury reached its decision after slightly less than three hours of deliberations.
Trump had been in court earlier, storming out at one point, but subsequently returning for closing arguments. He was not in court when the level of compensatory and punitive damages were read out by a court clerk.
“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,” Carroll said in a statement.
A juror exchanged a smile with Carroll as the nine men and women left the courtroom after the judge encouraged them to protect their privacy.
“It’s clear to me ... you paid attention,” Judge Lewis Kaplan told the jury following the verdict.
The order was comprised of US$65 million in punitive damages after the jury found Trump acted maliciously in his many public comments about Carroll, US$7.3 million in compensatory damages and US$11 million for a reputational repair program.
“I was not surprised [by the award] partly because his egregious misbehavior during the trial could actually have alienated the jury,” University of Richmond School of Law professor Carl Tobias said. Trump “is unlikely to prevail on appeal, because the [appeal] judges have great respect for Judge Kaplan, who is a very experienced federal jurist.”
Trump — whom a jury found liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a separate federal civil case in New York — used his Truth Social platform to fire off a spate of insulting messages attacking Carroll, the trial and the judge, whom he called “an extremely abusive individual.”
“We were stripped of every defense — every single defense — before we walked in there,” Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said outside the court. “I am proud to stand with president Trump... We will immediately appeal.”
Trump, 77, briefly took the stand on Thursday to deny he instructed anyone to harm Carroll with his statements.
During Trump’s testimony, Kaplan limited him to three questions from his lawyers, to which he could only answer “yes” or “no” — a precaution taken to prevent the Republican leader from returning to his custom of disparaging the court or Carroll in public.
“This is not America,” Trump said as he left the courtroom following his short appearance.
Trump has used the case, as well as others he faces, to generate heated media coverage and to fuel his claims of being victimized as he campaigns for a return to the White House in November’s election.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to