A jury sentenced Trump to pay $83 million for defaming columnist E. Jean Carroll International

Eight times more than the order. This Friday a federal jury sentenced Donald Trump to pay 83.3 million dollars in damages to columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused the former President of the United States of destroying his reputation as a journalist by refusing to Alleged that he had raped her. A fitting room of a luxury department store in Manhattan in the mid-nineties.

Carroll, 80, sued Trump, 77, in November 2019 for denying that he had raped her five months earlier. The favorite Republican candidate for the presidential nomination had already been convicted of sexually assaulting a woman last May. The jury then imposed a fine of five million dollars, three of which were for defamation.

In a post published on his social network, Truth Social, the Republican attacked the decision and assured that he would appeal. With his usual capital letters and exclamations, the leader in the Republican primaries wrote: “Absolutely ridiculous! I completely disagree with both decisions, and I will appeal this entire witch hunt led by (Democratic President 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 have taken away all of our First Amendment rights. This is not the United States of America.” The First Amendment to the US Constitution ensures freedom of speech.

Trump, who appeared in court for two consecutive days after attending campaign obligations in New Hampshire, unexpectedly left the courtroom this Friday while Carroll’s lead attorney read his closing arguments. Having previously been reprimanded by Lewis Kaplan, the judge presiding over the case, and even threatened with expulsion from the courtroom, the optimistic former president showed a more measured and lenient attitude during the two hearings today, although They were heartbroken by the sound of their lamentations on social media. Truth.

In all the processes he faces, the great man’s mantra is to become the victim of political witch-hunts by his Democratic enemies, aimed at preventing him from reaching the White House again and damaging his personal and professional reputation. Victimhood has brought him good results in both popularity and campaign fundraising: after each allegation – and there are four –, voting intention surveys skyrocket and the campaign’s cash register cannot cope with collecting handouts. In the three months between the Georgia and Washington indictments, the Trump campaign raised $45.5 million. Last year his team had estimated a collection of $10 million in the first quarter, 35 million in the second and the above mentioned 45.5 million in the third.

In the second round of the civil case brought by Carroll, which is also being tried in federal court in Manhattan, the nine-member jury was to put a figure on defamation by Republicans in denying Carroll’s allegations. The prosecution had requested ten million dollars, a figure slightly increased to 12 by a lawyer specializing in damages. The jury’s verdict has surprised everyone due to the high amount of compensation, which is divided into several chapters. Trump must pay Carroll $18.3 million in compensation: $11 million to finance a campaign to repair his reputation and $7.3 million for emotional harm caused by statements the former president made in 2019, immediately following his impeachment. Later the woman broadcast the program in the fitting room. Better to promote sales of an autobiographical book, according to Trump.

The jury determined that Trump should also pay $65 million in punitive damages for acting maliciously in ruling on Carroll, the identity of whose members have been completely protected, to the extent that any of them Does not know the real identity of the associates. After reading the verdict, Judge Kaplan thanked the members for their work, while lifting the order barring the deliberations on the condition that his colleagues not be identified. “Although my advice would be to never reveal that they have been part of a jury, I’m not going to say anything else about the case,” Kaplan said, as quoted by CNN. A day earlier, an old friend of Carroll’s, who testified at the defense’s request, highlighted the climate of political tension in the country as an aggravating circumstance of her testimony.

Last May, a separate federal jury in Manhattan awarded Carroll a total of $5 million in damages – three million of which were for defamation – after it proved that Trump sexually assaulted her in that department store changing room, and Then they defamed him in 2022. , insulted her to the extent of calling her “mentally ill” and again denied her allegations.

Candidates seeking re-election in November face a complex judicial landscape. In addition to the four allegations against him, there are two civil lawsuits, both in New York (one for defamation and the other for fraud in his family businesses), containing a total of 91 allegations. However, the judicial front has not lowered its political expectations, as shown by its landslide victories in the Iowa and New Hampshire caucuses.

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