Judge orders E. Jean Carroll be paid $5.8M in Trump sex abuse and defamation case; Trump appeals
“As a result of Trump’s statements, Carroll was harassed and humiliated, subjected to death threats, and feared for her physical safety for years,” Chin said. “And Trump showed no remorse, continuing his attacks against Carroll during and after two federal trials, and even proclaiming two days into the Carroll I trial that he would continue to defame her ‘a thousand times.’”
The president has already deposited the money in an account. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the 2023 civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money. The initial $5 million award has grown with interest.
The jury found Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store, and defamed her after she described it publicly in a 2019 memoir, during his first term as president. Trump called her allegations false and said “ she’s not my type ” in an interview.
Trump’s attorneys said Wednesday they would continue to appeal, and accused his political opponents of using the legal system against him. They asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the payment. Carroll’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The jury had reached its verdict — in a trial that Trump did not attend — after Carroll testified that their flirtatious and friendly chance encounter at the department store turned violent. Trump insisted he never knew Carroll, now 82, a former advice columnist. He accused her of trying to sell books at his expense and of having political motives.
At that trial, Kaplan required the jury to accept the findings of the previous jury and only determine how much money, if any, Trump owed Carroll for comments he made about her while he was president.
Trump’s lawyers complained that the judge, in setting rules for the damages trial, had barred Trump and his defense team from telling the jury that the encounter with Carroll never happened.
