(The Center Square) – A jury on Friday ordered former President Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages to an 80-year-old writer who accused him of ruining her reputation by denying he raped her in 1995 or 1996.
The jury awarded $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages. That’s far more than the $10 million writer E. Jean Carroll had sought.
Carroll sued Trump in 2019 after he denied that he had raped her in 1995 or 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.
Trump, 77, had said he never met Carroll. Lawyers for the favorite to win the Republican nomination this presidential election cycle said Carroll had sought fame and attention. Trump said she made up the story to boost sales of her memoir.
Trump said Friday’s verdict was a sign the nation’s legal system was broken.
“Absolutely ridiculous!” he wrote on Truth Social. “I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”
In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for $5 million in damages for sexually abusing Carroll and calling her a liar. In that trial, Carroll testified that Trump raped her and then defamed her by calling her a liar in a 2022 post on Truth Social, his social media platform. That jury found Carroll failed to prove that Trump raped her, but proved that Trump sexually assaulted her.
Trump has navigated court appearances and the campaign trail while becoming the first candidate to win the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary since those two states became 1-2 on the schedule in 1976. A 2020 rematch with incumbent President Joe Biden is the consensus forecast.
Carroll’s civil case is among the many legal challenges for Trump. He faces 91 felony charges in four criminal cases.
The Washington D.C. trial, one of the two federal criminal cases, is set to start March 4. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team of federal prosecutors charged Trump with four federal counts related to contesting the 2020 election and the storming of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.
The charges include conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction, and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted, according to the indictment. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
After that is Trump’s New York state criminal case, set to start on March 25. In that case, Trump pleaded not guilty in April to 34 felony counts related to charges he paid hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels through a lawyer before the 2016 presidential election and covered it up as a legal expense before being elected president.
Then comes the scheduled start of the classified documents case in Florida on May 20. In that case, Trump has pleaded not guilty to 40 felony counts that allege he kept sensitive military documents, shared them with people who didn’t have security clearance, and tried to thwart the government’s attempts to get them back.
Trump’s Georgia criminal trial is set for Aug. 4. In that case, Trump stands accused of trying to interfere in the state’s 2020 election. He has pleaded not guilty.
Just another example of a Demonic Democrat’s deadly device to falsely accuse and convict if not in court, but in the media, BEFORE THE ELECTION, which they know will be found out and reversed AFTER the election, too late to keep them from stealing the election. Timing is everything for the “To Catch a Thief” political party plotters who conspire to time things so as not to get caught with pants down, just catching THE PEOPLE with their pants down for another media molestation, with their and lady Justice’s eyes diverted from the truth that sets men free,,,,OF THEM. Like crying “Wolf” all too often, THE PEOPLE finally wise up and ignore what soon turns out to be boredom, doing the same thing over and over again and THE PEOPLE realizing next time they will get a different result, where it is the wolf and the Democrat wolf packs who get eaten in the end, or at least end up down the chimney in their own Biden boiling pots, fired up by Congressional squad versions of the three little pigs, like this one caught wearing lipstick in an imaginary dressing room with Trump.
I’d like to know, EXACTLY HOW IS Someone worth 60+ mil, in punative damages for being ‘defamed’?
DID She have to get a new idenitty and move?
Did she lose her old job? How many years does she have left at working??
How much/yr did she REALISTICALLY EXPECT to make for what time she has left?
Why wait after so many years? I someone did this to me, would I have waited so many years? Why doesn’t the law change? I believe she was either motivated by money or the democrats are using her to bring Trump down. This is his personal life and I would still vote for him.
BEcause the dims AND the cowards in the GOP, passed a bill a year or so ago, allowing folks to “CIVILLY SUE” for sexual harassment etc, even LONG AFTER the Criminal Statute of limitations has passed.. to “Try and bring Some form of justice”..
BUT HOW CAN IT BE JUSTICE, when the CRIMINAL Statute of limitations has LONG passed?! AND WHY DO SO many folks wait DECADES it seems to do anything?! MONEY! That’s why.
No problem. Fan base will pay it