From Le Figaro with AFP
Published yesterday at 11:12 p.m., updated yesterday at 11:52 p.m.
Donald Trump. EDUARDO MUNOZ / Portal
The former president was already found guilty of sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll in May 2023 and now has to pay her this astronomical sum for regularly insulting and denigrating her.
Former US President Donald Trump was ordered by a New York civil court on Friday, January 27, to pay $83.3 million to author Elizabeth Jean Carroll for defaming her while in the was accused of rape in the 1990s.
The former president of the United States, who is running for re-election, immediately denounced a “ridiculous” conviction on his social network Truth Social and promised to appeal. The heavy favorite in the Republican primaries and Joe Biden's most likely opponent in the November presidential election once again denounced “a Biden-led witch hunt against (him) and the Republican Party.”
This astronomical amount of more than $83 million, decided by a popular jury, specifically includes $65 million in “punitive damages.” The jury recognized the intent to “harm” Donald Trump, 77, whom the judge had already held responsible for defamatory statements against Elizabeth Jean Carroll, 80, which required at least $10 million in moral and professional damages claimed damages. The latter is a former columnist for the American edition of Elle magazine who accused Donald Trump of raping her in the dressing room of a New York department store in 1996.
An electric atmosphere
Due to another civil lawsuit in 2022 for rape and defamation, she had already found him guilty last May in a civil lawsuit for sexual assault 28 years ago and for defamatory statements in 2022. Donald Trump was then ordered to pay five million dollars in reparations. The total amount he will have to pay after the 2023 and 2024 trials is therefore more than $88 million.
This second trial, solely for defamation, stems from a first civil lawsuit in 2019 and began on January 16 in an electric atmosphere, mostly in the presence of the former tenant of the White House, who dreams of a return. As soon as the final hearings began on Friday, the tempestuous businessman suddenly got up from his chair and jumped out of the courtroom. However, Donald Trump returned to the courtroom.
“A FAKE Monica Lewinsky Story”
Elizabeth Jean Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan (no relation to Judge Kaplan), had just said that the former president of the United States “continued to defame her client throughout the trial.” “The man who sexually assaulted Ms. Carroll does what he wants: he lies, he defames,” thundered the lawyer, whom the septuagenarian continues to harm “on his powerful platform” Truth Social and its tens of millions of subscribers.
In fact, on Friday the tycoon posted around twenty messages in which he again accused Elizabeth Jean Carroll of putting together “a FAKE Monica Lewinsky story” – named after the White House intern who was at the center of a scandal, President Bill Almost drove Clinton to her death in the late 1990s – and “tried to extort money.”
“She 's sick”
On Thursday, the ex-president briefly defended himself in the trial, but his freedom of expression was strictly restricted by the judge in order to avoid verbal slip-ups. He merely indicated with a “yes” that he had made the comments sought in an initial 2019 complaint against rape allegations that E. Jean Carroll had just made publicly for the first time in a book. “She said something that I thought was wrong,” Trump said.
But on Wednesday evening he had again launched 37 attacks on Truth Social against Elizabeth Jean Carroll, whom he continues to denigrate and insult, calling her “crazy” with a “false story” that he has “never seen in his life.” . . “She’s sick,” he repeated during the procedure. Judge Kaplan, who presided over the first trial last year, ordered that this second trial should focus only on Donald Trump's defamatory statements and not on the complainant's rape allegations.
In addition to this case, four criminal cases await the former President of the United States.