A federal court in New York denied former President Donald Trump’s request for a new trial in a defamation lawsuit, which writer E. Jean Carroll had brought. The ruling upheld the jury’s damage award of $83.3 million.
The judge wrote, “Contrary to the defendant’s arguments, Ms. Carroll’s compensatory damages were not solely for her emotional distress; they were not for garden variety harms; and they were not excessive.”
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“Mr. Trump disseminated his malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll to more than 100 million people,” he stated in a statement. “They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll’s health and safety.”
Carroll’s attorney, Robbie Kaplan, applauded the decision.
“We are pleased, though not surprised, by the Court’s decision today denying Donald Trump’s motions for a new trial and judgment as a matter of law,” she said in a statement. “As the Court explained, it was entirely reasonable for the jury to award E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages given Donald Trump’s continued defamation of Ms. Carroll during the trial itself, as well as his conduct in the courtroom, where his ‘hatred and disdain [were] on full display.'”
Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, received a sentence of $83.3 million after a five-day hearing in February for defaming her in 2019 by denying her allegations of sexual abuse.
Carroll received $17.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages.
A separate trial in May 2023 found Trump guilty of sexually abusing Carroll in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and defaming her in a 2022 social media post by calling her charges “a hoax and a lie” and saying, “This woman is not my type!”
The jury found that Trump did not rape Carroll as she claimed, despite his conviction for sexual abuse.
Trump denied all allegations of impropriety, claiming he had never heard of Carroll.
Kaplan’s opinion on Thursday dismissed all of Trump’s lawyer’s allegations, concluding, “In short, the argument—which Mr. Trump previously made to the jury, conspicuously without success, and which defies common sense—does not warrant dismissal as a matter of law.”
