Donald Trump ordered to pay $127m to E. Jean Carroll in defamation case

Washington: Former US president Donald Trump has been ordered to pay more than $US83 million ($127 million) to a New York writer he sexually abused and defamed, in a potential blow to his campaign for re-election.

Three days after his decisive victory in the New Hampshire primaries, a civil jury in Manhattan has ordered the former US president to pay damages to E. Jean Carroll, who claims he attacked her in the lingerie dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

Trump has consistently denied the claims, even though a civil jury found him liable for the battery and defamation during a separate trial last year.

The current trial took place only to determine what damages he would have to pay for denigrating Carroll’s reputation, by casting her as a liar and relentlessly attacking her since she went public with her allegations three years ago.

At one point during closing arguments on Friday (local time), the former president abruptly stormed out of the courtroom as Carroll’s legal team was telling jurors he was a liar who thinks “the rules don’t apply to him.”

He also unleashed a series of social media posts, claiming he was the victim of a “one-sided trial” and accusing the judge of being “an extremely abusive individual.”

“He thinks with his wealth and power he can treat Ms Carroll how he wants and will suffer no consequences,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, told the jury.

Trump returned to the courtroom to hear his lawyer, Alina Habba, deliver her closing arguments. Habba suggested Carroll welcomed the attention she received after going public with her accusations, and told the jury that it was not Trump’s fault that Carroll had faced a backlash from his supporters on social media.

At rallies ahead of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primaries, Trump also consistently told supporters that Carroll was a “liar” a “whack job” and a “sick woman” whom he had never met and was not his type.

Donald Trump, after speaking at a primary election night party in Nashua, New Hampshire.

But after deliberating for almost three hours, the jury sided with Carroll, and ordered Trump to pay $US83.3 million in damages. This included $US65 million in punitive damages, $US7.3 million for emotional harm, and $US11 million for reputational damages.

The finding is another watershed moment for the #MeToo movement that was set in motion by the sexual predation of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein.

While Trump is expected to appeal the verdict, it could nonetheless affect his standing with a crucial group of voters he needs to beat Joe Biden in November: suburban women.

The verdict comes at a critical juncture in the election cycle, with Trump on track to become the Republican presidential candidate after decisive victories in Iowa and New Hampshire.

However, his only remaining rival, Nikki Haley, has vowed to fight on, starting with the next major Republican primary in her home state of South Carolina on February 24.

Trump has been accused of sexual harassment or assault by more than two dozen women since the 1970s, but the case against Carroll marked the first time he has been held to account by a civil court. The case was not criminal, meaning he has not been convicted of any crime and faces no prison time.

The current trial focuses on statements he made after Carroll first publicly accused him of raping her in a 2019 New York Magazine article, and for attacks on her since, via social media posts, on television and on the campaign trail.

Many of those attacks have since been adopted by his supporters, along with his denials. For instance, at a rally Iowa earlier this month, Trump made jokes about the trauma Carroll told the court she had suffered.

He also insisted he would not have taken her into a change room of a department store – where she claims the attack took place – given he had his own apartment and other properties around Manhattan.

Asked about the Carroll case, Trump supporter Dick Green, an evangelical pastor, told this masthead in Iowa that he believed the trial was part of a political witch hunt.

“If he wanted to have sex with a woman, he had a hotel or two right there close by,” he said. “He could have taken someone there, but she claims he did this in a dressing room? Are you kidding me?”

The latest case is one of many that Trump faces as he seeks to return to office. Between this week and the February 24 South Carolina primary, Trump is also set to face a verdict in a New York civil fraud trial, along with an appeals court decision on his claims that presidential immunity protects him from prosecution for election subversion.

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