Donald Trump was ordered Friday by a New York civil court to pay a whopping $83.3 million in damages to author E. Jean Carroll for defaming her, amid accusations of rape in the 1990s .
The former President of the United States, campaigning for re-election, immediately denounced on his social network Truth Social a “ridiculous” conviction and promised to appeal.
The big favorite in the Republican primaries and very likely opponent of Joe Biden in the November presidential election, once again denounced “a witch hunt led by Biden against (him) and the Republican Party”.
“THIS IS NOT AMERICA!” he exclaimed in writing.
This astronomical amount of $83.3 million, decided by nine jurors, includes $65 million in “punitive” damages intended to deter him from starting to attack Ms. Carroll again.
Intent to “harm”
Because the jury underlined the intention to “harm” Mr. Trump, 77, found responsible for defamatory remarks against this 80-year-old woman who claimed at least ten million dollars for moral and professional damage.
Elizabeth Jean Carroll was a journalist and columnist for the American edition of Elle magazine and in 2019 accused Donald Trump of having raped her in 1996 in a fitting room of a New York department store.
Getty Images via AFP
Friday evening, she emerged radiant from the Manhattan courthouse, surrounded by loved ones, in the middle of a forest of photographers.
In a statement, she hailed “a great victory for every woman who gets up after being knocked down and a huge defeat for every little bully who tried to keep her down.”
At the trial, she asked that justice restore her “reputation”.
On the basis of another civil complaint in 2022 for rape and defamation, she had already, last May, found Donald Trump responsible for sexual assault in 1996 and for defamatory comments on this affair made in 2022.
The tycoon was then ordered to pay him five million dollars, which brings to 88 million dollars the sum he will have to pay after these two trials in May 2023 and this month.
This latest trial, solely for defamation, stems from a first civil complaint in 2019 and opened on January 16 in an electric atmosphere in the presence most often of the ex-tenant of the White House, who dreams of return there, buoyed by his victories in the Republican primaries in the states of Iowa and New Hampshire.
Trump leaves the courtroom
Barely had final arguments begun on Friday when the tempestuous businessman and political tribune suddenly got up from his chair and bounded out of the courtroom.
He then went back and forth between the courtroom and the corridors of the courthouse.
Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, (no relation to Judge Lewis Kaplan), had just said that the ex-president had “spent the entire trial defaming” his client.
“The man who sexually assaulted (Ms. Carroll) does what he wants: he lies, he defames,” thundered the lawyer for whom the septuagenarian “continues to harm her on his powerful platform,” the network Truth Social with tens of millions of subscribers.
In fact, Mr. Trump posted around sixty messages from Wednesday to Friday once again accusing Ms. Carroll of having put together “a FALSE Monica Lewinsky story” – named after the White House intern scandal that had nearly taken away President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s — and “sought to EXTORT” money.
He again called her “crazy”, with a “phony story”, that he had “never seen in (his) life”. During the procedure in 2022, he described the author as “sick”.
On Thursday, the former head of state briefly defended himself at the trial but his freedom of speech was strictly limited to avoid any verbal slippage.
“She said something that I considered to be false,” Mr. Trump simply responded about the first accusations of rape made by Ms. Carroll in a book in 2019 and her complaint the same year.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the 2023 trial, ordered that it only focus on Donald Trump’s defamatory comments and not on the rape accusations.
In addition to this case, four criminal trials await the former president of the United States.
