New York: A jury awarded $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll on Friday in a stinging and expensive rebuke to former President Donald Trump for his continued social media attacks against the longtime advice columnist over her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store.
The award, when coupled with a $5 million sexual assault and defamation verdict last year from another jury in a case brought by Carroll, raised to $88.3 million what Trump must pay her. Protesting vigorously, he said he would appeal.
Carroll, 80, clutched her lawyers’ hands and smiled as the seven-man, two-woman jury delivered its verdict. Minutes later, she shared a weepy three-way hug with her attorneys.
She declined comment as she left the Manhattan federal courthouse, but issued a statement later through a publicist, 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.”
Trump had attended the trial earlier in the day, but stormed out of the courtroom during closing arguments read by Carroll’s attorney. He returned for his own attorney’s closing argument and for a portion of the deliberations, but left the courthouse a half hour before the verdict was read.
It was the second time in nine months that a civil jury returned a verdict related to Carroll’s claim that a flirtatious, chance encounter with Trump in 1996 at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue store ended violently. She said Trump slammed her against a dressing room wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her.
In May, a different jury awarded Carroll $5 million. It found Trump not liable for rape, but responsible for sexually abusing Carroll and then defaming her by claiming she made it up. He is appealing that award, too.
Trump is also awaiting a verdict in a New York civil fraud trial, where state lawyers are seeking the return of $370 million in what they say were ill-gotten gains from loans and deals made using financial statements that exaggerated his wealth.
As for Trump’s ability to pay, he reported having about $294 million in cash or cash equivalents on his most recent annual financial statement, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021. Testifying at his civil fraud trial last November, he Trump boasted: “I have very little debt, and I have a lot of cash.”
Trump skipped the first Carroll trial. He later expressed regret for not attending and insisted on testifying in the second trial, though the judge limited what he could say, ruling he had missed his chance to argue that he was innocent. He spent only a few minutes on the witness stand Thursday, during which he denied attacking Carroll, then left court grumbling “this is not America.”
This new jury was only asked how much Trump, 77, should pay Carroll for two statements he made as president when he answered reporters’ questions after excerpts of Carroll’s memoir were published in a magazine — damages that couldn’t be decided earlier because of legal appeals. Jurors were not asked to re-decide the issue of whether the sex attack actually happened.
Carroll’s attorneys had requested $24 million in compensatory damages and “an unusually high punitive award.” The jury awarded $18.3 million in compensatory damages and another $65 million in punitive damages — meant to deter future behavior.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, urged jurors in her closing argument Friday to punish Trump enough that he would stop a steady stream of public statements smearing Carroll as a liar and a “whack job.”
Trump shook his head vigorously as Kaplan spoke, then suddenly stood and walked out, taking Secret Service agents with him. His exit came only minutes after the judge, without the jury present, threatened to send Trump attorney Alina Habba to jail for continuing to talk when he told her she was finished.
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