NEW YORK: A jury awarded USD 83.3 million to E Jean Carroll on Friday in a stinging and expensive rebuke to former President Donald Trump for his continued social media attacks against the longtime advice columnist over her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store.
The award, when coupled with a USD 5 million sexual assault and defamation verdict last year from another jury in a case brought by Carroll, raised to $88.3 million what Trump must pay her. Protesting vigorously, he said he would appeal.
Carroll, 80, clutched her lawyers’ hands and smiled as the seven-man, two-woman jury delivered its verdict. Minutes later, she shared a weepy three-way hug with her attorneys.
She declined comment as she left the Manhattan federal 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 read 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 afterwards. “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon.”
It was the second time in nine months that a civil jury returned a verdict related to Carroll’s claim that a flirtatious, chance encounter with Trump in 1996 at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue store ended violently. She said Trump slammed her against a dressing room wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her.
In May, a different jury awarded Carroll USD 5 million. It found Trump not liable for rape, but responsible for sexually abusing Carroll and then defaming her by claiming she made it up. He is appealing that award, too.