Jury orders Trump to pay $83.3m for defaming E. Jean Caroll

After the verdict was read aloud in federal court in lower Manhattan, Carroll emerged from the courthouse smiling and flanked by her legal team.

She declined to speak to a crush of cameras and reporters gathered outside, but issued a statement later, 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.”

Reacting to the verdict on social media, Trump who is contesting the US President he lost to Joe Biden, four years ago, called the judicial system “Broken and Unfair!”

A longtime advice columnist, Carroll wrote a story in New York magazine in 2019 accusing Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

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Trump, who was president at the time, immediately denied the allegations, calling Carroll a “whack job” and claiming he had never met her.

He would go on to repeat similar denials in public appearances, social media posts and even in court, a pattern cited by Carroll’s attorneys during the trial.

Carroll filed two defamation lawsuits over comments Trump made in 2019 and 2022, arguing his disparagements ruined her reputation and subjected her to endless streams of threats.

In the trial to resolve Carroll’s first suit in May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse, and awarded Carroll $5 million.