Trump vows to appeal $83.3M ruling in civil case

Former President Donald Trump must pay advice columnist E. Jean Carroll a stunning $83.3 million for defaming her in 2019, when he denied her allegations of sexual assault and said “people should pay dearly for such false accusations,” a federal civil jury ruled Friday.

Carroll’s lawyers had asked the anonymous nine-person jury for heavy damages against the former president, and the panel didn’t disappoint: Carroll was awarded $18.3 million in compensatory damages, and $65 million in punitive damages. The jury deliberated for just three hours after a trial spanning several days of testimony and arguments.

Trump, who left the Manhattan courtroom before the verdict was read, fumed on social media and vowed to appeal the jury’s decision.

“Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon.”

Carroll smiled as the verdict was announced. “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,” she said in a statement Friday night.

Friday’s defamation damages are in addition to the $5 million Trump already was told he will have to pay Carroll after a jury found last May that he had sexually abused and then defamed the bestselling author in 2022, when he called her accusation a “con job.”

The new verdict addresses Trump’s initial denials, in 2019, after Carroll first went public with allegations that Trump had raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.