Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $83.3m in a defamation case to a woman who accused him of sexual assault – with the former US president saying her allegation was a lie.
The court said Trump should pay $18.3m in compensation and $65m in punitive damages.
Jurors heard closing arguments in the case earlier, with E Jean Carroll’s lawyer telling them that Trump should pay
“dearly” for defaming her.
Ms Carroll, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, accused Trump of destroying her reputation as a trustworthy journalist by denying her raped in the mid-1990s.
A lawyer for the former president argued Ms Carroll did not deserve any money, claiming she enjoyed the attention and suffered neither professional nor emotional harm after Trump branded her a liar.
Ms Carroll, 80, was seeking at least $10m for Trump having defamed her in June 2019, when he was president, by
denying her claim that he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
She said Trump’s comments caused her to be subjected to years of continuous attacks, including death threats.
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Trump, 77, accused Carroll of making up the encounter to boost sales of her memoir, and has maintained he had never heard of her.
He has also attacked Ms Carroll during the trial and on the campaign trial, proclaiming her case a “witch hunt” and a “con
job”.
Another jury last May ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5m over a similar October 2022 denial, finding that he had defamed and sexually abused her.
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