Donald Trump Ordered to Pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 Million over Defamatory Statements
Carroll's legal team sought $24 million in damages to restore the writer's reputation and compensate for emotional harm, but an anonymous jury of seven men and two women aimed higher
Donald Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for making defamatory statements about the writer, a jury determined Friday afternoon.
An anonymous federal jury made up of seven men and two women reached the verdict after nearly three hours of deliberations in a civil trial aiming to decide how much money — if any — the former president should give the writer as punishment for disparaging her in 2019 and denying that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
The former president was already deemed liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a separate civil trial last spring and ordered to pay $5 million in damages. This trial focused specifically on his 2019 statements.
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E. Jean Carroll leaves a courthouse in May 2023 after a federal jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing herCarroll's legal team argued in court this month that her client should get $24 million in damages both for emotional suffering and to repair her reputation.
“Ladies and gentleman, this isn’t a campaign rally. It’s not a press event. It’s a court of law and Miss Carroll’s life,” Carroll's attorney Shawn Crowley said in closing arguments. “Donald Trump sexually assaulted her. He defamed her. He is not the victim.”
Ultimately, the Manhattan jury awarded Carroll $18.3 million in compensatory damages, $11 million to repair her reputation, and $7.3 million for the emotional harm Trump's defamatory statements caused, CNN reports. The remaining $65 million covered punitive damages for allegedly acting maliciously when making the statements.
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After reading the verdict, Judge Lewis Kaplan — a frequent target of Trump's social media attacks — offered a word of wisdom to the jurors, whose names are not publicly known: “My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury, and I won’t say anything more about it."
Trump quickly denounced the verdict on Truth Social, calling it "absolutely ridiculous" and saying that he would appeal the decision.
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