A jury in federal court in New York this afternoon has awarded journalist E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages in her second defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump. Earlier today, Trump walked out of the courtroom while an attorney for Carroll was in the middle of giving a closing argument to the jury. Judge Lewis Kaplan interrupted the proceedings and told the court clerk to record that Trump had walked out.
The jury award consisted of $11 million for Trump having again damaged Carroll’s reputation, $7.3 million for emotional harm and $65 million in punitive damages. After having been found guilty of defaming Carroll in the first trial, Trump continued to make claims that she was lying about him having assaulted her. His continued claims led to Carroll filing her second defamation lawsuit.
In her second lawsuit, Carroll had asked for only $10 million in damages. Today’s jury award was more than eight times what she has requested.
Donald Trump testified in the courtroom in Manhattan for about three or four minutes yesterday. Judge Kaplan ordered segments of his testimony stricken from the record after Trump violated a court ruling that his attorneys had accepted. The ruling was that Trump could not claim on the stand that he is innocent of sexually assaulting Carroll. The reason was that the jury in the first case found him guilty of sexual assault, which Judge Kaplan, who presided in both defamation cases against Trump classified as rape.Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages in the first trial. Trump’s attorneys said they planned to appeal.
In a post on one of his internet sites, Trump denounced the jury’s award and criticized the entire U.S. judicial system. He also alleged that President Biden was responsible for his having been found guilty and being ordered to pay damages but did not provide evidence to support his allegation.
