Donald Trump ordered to pay $83.3 million in sexual assault defamation case

Donald Trump has been ordered to pay a further $83.3 million (€76.6 millioin) to a woman he attacked on his social media channels over claims he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store.

Friday's ruling by a New York court is a stinging and expensive rebuke to the former US president and means he will have to pay accuser E. Jean Carroll a total of $88.3 million (€81.28 million) following an earlier sexual assault and defamation verdict that he lost last year.

Trump has protested vigorously, saying he will appeal.

Carroll, 80, clutched her lawyers’ hands and smiled as the seven-man, two-woman anonymous jury delivered its verdict. Minutes later, she shared a weepy three-way hug with her attorneys.

She declined comment as she left the courthouse, but issued a statement later through a publicist, saying, “This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.”

Trump had attended the trial earlier in the day, but stormed out of the courtroom during closing arguments by Carroll’s attorney. He returned for his own attorney’s closing argument and for a portion of the deliberations, but left the courthouse a half hour before the verdict was read.

“Absolutely ridiculous!” he said in a statement shortly afterward. “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon.”

His attorneysaid the verdict resulted because Trump's opponents were suing “in states where they know they will get juries like this.”

Trump still faces 91 criminal charges in four indictments accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, mishandling classified documents and arranging payoffs to a porn star.