Jury orders Donald Trump to pay $83 mn for sex assault defamation
jury in New York ordered former US president and 2024 candidate Donald Trump on Friday to pay $83.3 million to compensate the 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 $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.
The jury reached its decision after slightly less than three hours of deliberations.
Trump had been in court earlier, storming out at one point to subsequently return for closing arguments. He was not in court when the level of compensatory and punitive damages were read out by a court clerk.
Following the verdict, Trump's lawyer Alina Habba spoke only to thank court staff. 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 $65 million punitive damages after the jury found Trump acted maliciously in his many public comments about Carroll, $7.3 million in compensatory damages, and $11 million for a reputational repair program.
Trump — whom a jury found liable for sexual assault of 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.»
Trump, 77, briefly took the stand on Thursday to deny he instructed anyone to
