“This is a huge victory for every woman who gets back up after being torn down, and a huge defeat for every bully who tried to keep a woman down.” The writer Jean Carroll thus commented the verdict of the jury that convicted Donald Trump to talk to him 83.3 million dollars compensation for defaming her by denying a sexual assault. The sentence was echoed by her lawyer Roberta Kaplanshows that no one is above the law, “not even the rich, not even the famous, not even former presidents.”
“There is a way to stand up to someone like Donald Trump who cares more about wealth, fame and power than respecting the law,” Kaplan continued, according to whom “standing up to a bully requires courage and audacity, it takes someone like Jean Carroll. We thank the jury for standing up for her and the rule of law.”
For Trump, this is the second civil conviction in New York in the Carroll case and a new full judicial blow election campaign for the White House: a jury of seven men and two women convicted him after only three hours. The case dates back to 2019 when President Trump denied the attack occurred 30 years earlier in a luxury department store in the Big Apple.
The tycoon was not in the courtroom when the verdict was read. This is an astronomical sum, much higher than expected, between 18.3 million “compensatory” damages (due to emotional stress, damage to reputation and therefore loss of earnings) and as many as 65 million punitive damages (as a deterrent against further defamation). Carroll’s defense had asked for 24 million dollars, while the experts had estimated the damages between 7 and 12 million dollars. Last May the tycoon had already been found responsible for the same violence, as well as defamation, and forced to pay 5 million dollars.
The Donald’s reaction was immediate on his social network Truth: “Absolutely ridiculous! I completely disagree with both verdicts and I will appeal against all this witch hunt directed by Biden against me and the Republican Party. Our legal system is out of control and is being used as a political weapon. They eliminated all the rights of First Amendment. This is not America!”.
The verdict comes at the end of a very tense trial, where Trump was threatened with being expelled from the courtroom for his excesses and his loud comments against his accuser. Just as one of his lawyers was threatened with imprisonment for continuing his speech beyond the allotted time. The tycoon was able to testify on Thursday for only a few minutes: the judge had allowed him to answer only yes or no to the questions, to avoid transforming the trial into an electoral rally, as the former president tries to do in all the occasions. So he could only confirm his previous testimony, namely that he never met or attacked Carroll.
“It’s a lie, and then he wasn’t even my type,” he had said in the past, continuing not only to deny the episode, but accusing the writer of having sought a bit of publicity to sell her memoirs, the ones where she revealed for the attack for the first time. According to the woman’s version, the tycoon used violence against her almost 30 years ago in a fitting room in Bergdorf and Goodman, the luxury department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, where he had asked her for advice on giving underwear as a gift to a friend. A complaint deemed founded last May. For this reason, in this second trial the jury only had to limit itself to establishing the damages for yet another defamation.
But the verdict went beyond all expectations and deals a bad blow to the former president, even in the eyes of the female electorate. “Donald Trump destroyed my reputation and continued to lie. I was once one respected columnistnow I’m known as a liar, a cheater and a crazy person and now I’m here to get mine back reputation“, Carroll defended herself in court, citing the offenses she had suffered on social media.