Former U.S. president Donald Trump leaves his apartment building in New York on Jan 26.Yuki Iwamura/The Associated Press
Donald Trump was ordered by a federal jury on Friday to pay US$83.3-million in damages to E. Jean Carroll, who accused the former U.S. president of destroying her reputation as a trustworthy journalist by denying he raped her nearly three decades ago.
Ms. Carroll, 80, sued Mr. Trump in November, 2019, over his denials five months earlier that he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Mr. Trump, 77, claimed that he had never heard of Ms. Carroll, and that she made up her story to boost sales of her memoir.
His lawyers said Ms. Carroll was hungry for fame and enjoyed the attention from supporters for speaking out against her nemesis.
Another jury last May ordered Mr. Trump to pay Ms. Carroll US$5-million over a similar October, 2022, denial, finding that he had defamed and sexually abused Ms. Carroll. Mr. Trump is appealing that decision.
In the current trial, Ms. Carroll had sought at least US$10-million more, saying Mr. Trump had “shattered” her reputation as a respected journalist who told the truth.
She also sought punitive damages, in part to keep Mr. Trump from repeating his denials.
U.S. District Justice Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw both trials, said the earlier verdict was binding for the second trial, meaning the only issue for jurors was how much Mr. Trump should pay.
Mr. Trump, a Republican, has used Ms. Carroll’s case and his other legal travails to bolster his campaign to retake the White House in the November election in a likely showdown against Democrat Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020.
Mr. Trump faces 91 felony counts in four criminal indictments, including two cases accusing him of trying to illegally overturn his 2020 election loss. He has pleaded not guilty in all of the cases, and has portrayed himself as the victim of politically motivated lies and an out-of-control judicial system.
During the Ms. Carroll trial, Mr. Trump was heard muttering in court that the case was a “con job” and “witch hunt” and that he still did not know who Ms. Carroll was, prompting the judge to twice admonish him to keep quiet.
Mr. Trump stalked out of the courtroom during the closing argument on Friday by Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, but returned for his own lawyer’s argument.
Ms. Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, had argued that Mr. Trump acted as though he wasn’t bound by the law.
“This trial is about getting him to stop, once and for all,” she added. “Now is the time to make him pay for it dearly.”
Mr. Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba countered that it was the publication of excerpts from Ms. Carroll’s memoir in New York magazine that triggered the attacks, not Mr. Trump’s denials that began five hours later.
She also argued that Ms. Carroll enjoyed her new-found fame and was “happier than ever,” citing her testimony that she had entered a “cocoon of love” from her supporters.
A Northwestern University damages expert who testified on Ms. Carroll’s behalf estimated the reputational harm from Mr. Trump’s statements was US$7.3-million to US$12.1-million.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump spent only four minutes defending himself on the witness stand after Justice Kaplan forbade him and his lawyers from revisiting issues that the first trial had settled.
Mr. Trump was allowed to confirm his October, 2022, deposition testimony, which jurors had been shown, in which he called Ms. Carroll’s claims a “hoax” and said she was “mentally sick.”
Ms. Carroll wrote the “Ask E. Jean” column for Elle from 1993 to 2019, and often appeared on such programs as NBC’s Today and ABC’s Good Morning America. She said those appearances dried up because of Mr. Trump.