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A jury in New York condemned Donald Trump to pay 83.3 million dollars in compensation for defaming the writer Jean Carroll by denying in 2019 – when he was president – a sexual assault almost 30 years ago in a luxury department store in the Big Apple. Carroll had asked for 24 million. It is the second civil conviction after that of last May, when the tycoon was found responsible for the same violence, as well as defamation, and forced to pay 5 million dollars.
This is a much higher sum than expected, between 18.3 million in “compensatory” damages (for emotional stress and damage to reputation and therefore loss of earnings) and 65 million in “punitive” damages ( as a deterrent against further defamation).
Seven men and two women on the jury
The jury, made up of seven men and two women, had to determine the amount of damages against the woman for the defamatory public statements made by the tycoon in 2019, in which Trump denigrated the writer by rejecting the rape accusations. During the closing argument, Carroll’s lawyer stated that the writer should have been compensated at least $24 million. In May 2023 he had already been convicted of violence and defamation: in that case, as mentioned, the sentence amounted to 5 million dollars. However, Trump was not in the courtroom having left the building around 4pm local time: the former president was not required to be present in court.
Trump: I disagree with the verdicts
The former president has announced that he will appeal. «Absolutely ridiculous! I totally disagree with the verdicts, and I will appeal this entire witch hunt directed by Joe Biden and focused on me and the Republican Party. Our legal system is out of control and is being used as a political weapon. They took away all our First Amendment rights. This is not America!”, Donald Trump said on his social network Truth the verdict.