A federal judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s request for a new trial in a civil case in which a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming columnist E Jean Carroll.
Mr Trump was ordered to pay $5m (£3.9m) in damages, which he argued was excessive based on the jury’s verdict.
Mr Trump’s attorneys had argued in their bid for a new trial that “the Court should order a new trial on damages or grant remittitur because contrary to Plaintiff’s claim of rape, the Jury found that she was not raped but was sexually abused by defendant during the 1995/1996 Bergdorf Goodman incident.”
In a 59-page decision on Wednesday, US District judge Lewis Kaplan ruled the jury did not reach “a seriously erroneous result”, in calculating the amount of damages, as argued by Mr Trump’s lawyers, and dismissed his request for a new trial.
Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer representing E Jean Carroll, said her client looks forward to “continuing to hold Trump accountable” in a further defamation trial scheduled to begin early next year. Ms Carroll has sued Mr Trump for $10m (£7.7m) for statements he made in 2019 that she claims are defamatory.
In an order Monday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said that Trump had not proven that Carroll’s statements on CNN the day after the jury awarded her $5 million after finding that Trump sexually abused Carroll and defamed her were false or “not at least substantially true,” which is the legal standard.
Trump sued Carroll in June based on her response to questions posed on CNN. Carroll was asked about the verdict finding Trump sexually abused Carroll, but did not rape her as defined under New York law and as she alleged. Carroll said, “Oh, yes he did.”
In throwing out Trump’s lawsuit, the judge wrote, “Indeed, the jury’s verdict in Carroll II establishes, as against Mr Trump, the fact that Mr Trump ‘raped her’, albeit digitally rather than with his penis. Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms Carroll’s ‘rape’ accusations.”
The judge previously rejected Trump’s request for a new trial.
Trump is set to go to trial in January on another defamation lawsuit brought by Carroll in 2019 for statements Trump made while he was president. That case was tied up in legal issues while the lawsuit brought under the Adult Survivors Act (known as Carroll II) went to trial in May, resulting in the $5 million award.
The former president has also appealed that jury’s verdict and other “adverse” rulings.
Donald Trump’s forthcoming civil trial, set for January, over comments he made in 2019 about the writer E Jean Carroll and her allegation that he raped her will only concern how much more he has to pay, a judge said on Wednesday, ruling that the comments were were already adjudged libelous.
In his ruling on Wednesday, US district court judge Lewis Kaplan said: “The jury [in the first trial] considered and decided issues that are common to both cases – including whether Mr Trump falsely accused Ms Carroll of fabricating her sexual assault charge and, if that were so, that he did it with knowledge that this accusation was false” or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
That’ll be more millions for Trump to pay Carroll …
Trump ranted on Truth Social on Wednesday about the “unconstitutional” nature of the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law enacted in May 2022 that allows victims of sexual assault to file civil suits no matter if the statute of limitations expired. The act is what allowed Carroll to sue Trump for sexual assault.
The former president wrote:
“I hope that Mayor Eric Adam’s, Andrew Cuomo, and all of the others that got sued based on this ridiculous law where someone can be sued decades later, and with no proof, will fight it on being totally unfair and UNCONSTITUTIONAL. I got sued, decades later (she has no idea when her made up event took place!), by a woman - I HAD NO IDEA WHO SHE WAS. It was a made up fairytale that was brought and funded by political operatives for purposes of Election Interference.”
Trump’s social media post could land him in even more hot water as legal experts told Newsweek that there is no limit to how many times Carroll can sue Trump for defamation.
“Trump can be sued every time he defames her, through his speeches and written words. Each successive case becomes easier for Carroll’s lawyers to win,” Dave Aronberg, the State Attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, told Newsweek, adding that “Groundhog Day is becoming quite expensive for the former president.”
