Jury orders Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million after years of insults

Former President Donald J. Trump was ordered by a Manhattan jury on Friday to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her in 2019 after she accused him of a decades-long rape, attacks he continued in social media posts, at press conferences and even in the middle of the trial itself.

Ms. Carroll's lawyers had argued that a large reward was needed to prevent Mr. Trump from continuing to attack her. After less than three hours of deliberation, the jury responded by awarding Ms. Carroll $65 million in damages, finding that Mr. Trump had acted with malice. On a recent day, he posted more than 40 mocking messages about Ms. Carroll on his Truth Social website.

On Friday, Mr. Trump had already left the courtroom for the day when the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, called the nine-member jury shortly after 4:30 p.m. and warned the lawyers: “We're not going to have any outbursts.” Nine minutes later the verdict was delivered, after which there was total silence in the courtroom.

In addition to the $65 million, jurors awarded Ms. Carroll $18.3 million in damages for her suffering. Trump's lawyers slumped in their chairs as the dollar figures were read out. The jury was dismissed and Ms. Carroll, 80, hugged her lawyers. A few minutes later, she walked out of the courthouse arm in arm with her legal team, beaming for the cameras.

“This is a huge victory for every woman who has stood up when she has been knocked down and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to hold a woman down,” Ms. Carroll said in a statement, profusely thanking her lawyers.

Mr Trump, who had earlier walked out of the courtroom during Ms Carroll's lawyer's closing argument, said in a Truth Social post that the verdict was “absolutely ridiculous”.

“Our justice system is out of control and is being used as a political weapon,” he said, vowing to appeal. “They took away all First Amendment rights.”

It is striking that he did not attack Ms Carroll.

Outside the courthouse, Mr. Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, combined complaints about Judge Kaplan's handling of the case with slogans, echoing Mr. Trump's claims that he was being mistreated by a corrupt system. “We didn't win today,” she told reporters, “but we will win.”

Mr. Trump's appeal will likely prevent Ms. Carroll from receiving the money she is entitled to anytime soon.

Ms. Carroll's lead attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, said the verdict “proves that the law applies to everyone in our country, even the wealthy, even the famous and even former presidents.”

The verdict far eclipsed the $5 million that a separate jury awarded Ms. Carroll last spring after finding that Mr. Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and assaulted her in October 2022 at a Truth Social post had defamed. The verdict came after Mr. Trump attended nearly every day of the latest trial and testified briefly this week.

Judge Kaplan, who presided over both trials, had ruled that the jury's findings from last May would be carried over into the current one, limiting the second jury's focus solely on damages. Mr. Trump, who is running for president again, was not allowed to go beyond this issue in his testimony. On Thursday, outside the jury's presence, the judge asked Ms. Habba for a preview of that testimony. “I want to know everything he's going to say,” the judge said.

Ultimately, Mr. Trump, through his actions and words, was his own worst enemy. During the trial, he attacked Ms. Carroll online and insulted her during a campaign stop in New Hampshire last week. In court, the judge warned Mr. Trump that he could be disbarred after Ms. Carroll's lawyers complained that he muttered “scam” and “witch hunt” loud enough for jurors to hear.

In their closing arguments on Friday, Ms. Carroll's lawyers, Ms. Kaplan and Shawn G. Crowley, used Trump's presence in court as a weapon against him. Ms Crowley said his actions demonstrated his belief he could get away with anything, including continuing to defame Ms Carroll.

“You have seen how he has behaved throughout this process,” Ms Crowley said. 'You heard him. He was seen standing up and walking out of the courtroom as Ms. Kaplan was speaking. Rules don't apply to Donald Trump.”

There could be even more financial damage for Mr. Trump. He is still awaiting the outcome of a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general that concluded this month. Attorney General Letitia James has asked a judge to fine Trump about $370 million.

The former president also faces four criminal charges, at least one of which is expected to go to trial before the November elections. His civil cases will soon be over, but the bigger threat – a total of 91 charges – still lurks.

Friday's verdict was a coda to two weeks of political success for Trump. He completed a win in Iowa and New Hampshire in the first two 2024 presidential candidate states, cementing himself as the likely Republican nominee.

He has used his courtroom appearances as a fundamental part of his campaign, portraying himself as a political martyr targeted on all sides by Democratic law enforcement officials, as well as Ms. Carroll. His loss to her will most likely linger for a while.

During the trial, Ms. Carroll testified that Trump's repeated taunts and lashings had mobilized many of his supporters. She said she faced a barrage of attacks on social media and in her email inbox that scared her and “shattered” her reputation as a valued advice columnist for Elle magazine.

Ms Carroll told the jury she had been attacked on Twitter and Facebook. “I was living in a new universe,” she said.

The trial lasted about five days over two weeks and was marked by repeated clashes between Mr. Trump's lawyers and Judge Kaplan, who is known for his command of the courtroom. The former president's testimony was eagerly anticipated for days, but he was on the stand for less than five minutes Thursday, and his testimony was notable for how little he ultimately said.

On Friday, Ms. Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, asked the jury in a clear and methodical summary to award Ms. Carroll enough money to help her restore her reputation and compensate her for the emotional damage caused by the attacks. Mr Trump had inflicted. .

Ms. Kaplan also emphasized that Mr. Trump could afford significant damages, which come into play when a defendant's conduct is deemed to have been particularly malicious. She cited a video clip played for the jury in which he estimated that his brand alone was worth “maybe $10 billion” and that the value of several of his properties was $14 billion.

“Donald Trump is worth billions of dollars,” Ms. Kaplan told the jury.

“The law says that in making that assessment you can take into account both Donald Trump's wealth and his malicious and hateful conduct,” Ms. Kaplan said, adding: “Now is the time to call him out and now it is time to make him pay dearly for it.”

Mr. Trump was not present to hear her. After scoffing, muttering and shaking his head for the first few minutes of Ms. Kaplan's closing argument, Mr. Trump wordlessly rose from the defense table, turned and left the 26th-floor courtroom. Ms. Kaplan continued to address the jury as if no gross breach of decorum had occurred.

“The record will show that Mr. Trump just stood up and left the courtroom,” Judge Kaplan said.

Mr. Trump returned about 75 minutes later, as his lawyer, Ms. Habba, began her summons.

Mr. Trump's lawyers have cast Ms. Carroll as a fame-hungry writer who tried to create an ever-shrinking profile when she first made her accusation against Mr. Trump in a 2019 book excerpt in New York magazine about an encounter which she says traumatized her. decades.

Ms. Habba, her voice loud and heavy, her tone mocking and sarcastic, argued that Ms. Carroll's reputation, far from being damaged, had been improved as a result of the president's statements. And she said Ms. Carroll's lawyers had not proven that the barrage of threats and defamatory statements the writer received were in response to Mr. Trump's statements.

“No causation,” Ms. Habba thundered, adding: “President Trump has no more control over the thoughts and feelings of social media users than he does over the weather.”

Ms. Crowley, in an animated and impassioned rebuttal to Ms. Habba, rejected her claim that Mr. Trump's statements did not trigger the threats Ms. Carroll received. “There couldn't be clearer evidence of causation,” Ms Crowley said.

The jurors remained attentive during the closing arguments. One of them looked intently at Ms. Kaplan during much of her summary; others alternated between looking at the lawyers, staring at the evidence on the screens, and taking notes.

During the summaries, Mr. Trump's account on his Truth Social website posted about 16 messages in 15 minutes, mostly attacking Judge Kaplan and Ms. Carroll with his signature insults — the kind of insults that have now become very expensive.

Ms. Kaplan said in her closing argument that the only thing that could get Trump to stop his attacks would be making it too expensive for him to continue.

The jury seems to agree in its verdict.

Olivia Bensimon, Anusha Bayya, Maggie Haberman, Shane Goldmacher And Michael Gold reporting contributed.