NEW YORK, July 19 (Reuters) – A federal judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s request for a new trial after a jury found the former U.S. president responsible for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll and awarded him $5 million.
In a 59-page decision, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan also dismissed Trump’s arguments to reduce damages to less than $1 million.
Kaplan said that unanimous verdict of May 9 it was “almost entirely in Ms. Carroll’s favour”, and was not a “grossly erroneous result” or a “judicial error”.
Trump, who is again seeking the presidency, appealed the decision, adding it to his earlier appeal of the jury’s verdict. His attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
Carroll, 79, accused Trump, 77, of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and defaming her in an October 2022 social media post when she called the incident a “cheat and lie” and said Carroll was not her “type.”
She is also launching a $10 million defamation lawsuit against Trump for similar comments in June 2019, after she first accused him of forcing himself on her at the Bergdorf Goodman store. Trial is scheduled for January 15, 2024.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said her client hopes to collect the $5 million and the second trial.
In another legal setback for Trump on Wednesday, another judge turned down your offer
move a criminal case against him related to a hush money payment to a porn star to federal court from a New York state court.
Trump faces many other legal problems, including federal indictment over classified documents he took from the White House and possible charges over his efforts to remain president after his 2020 election loss.
JUDGE SAYS TRUMP MIS INTERPRETED JURY VERDICT
Seeking reduced damages in Carroll’s case, Trump called the $2 million sexual assault award “grossly excessive” because such abuse could have included groping Carroll’s breasts through her clothing, “far from rape.”
But Judge Kaplan said New York criminal law defines rape much more narrowly than ordinary people think of the term, and that Trump was wrong to insist that he excused it.
“The evidence convincingly established, and the jury found implicitly, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing her immediate pain and lasting emotional and psychological damage,” the judge wrote.
“Therefore, Mr. Trump’s argument ignores much of the evidence at trial, misconstrues the jury’s verdict, and (ignores) the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump,” he added.
The judge also said the evidence justified awarding Carroll $3 million for defamation, rejecting Trump’s claim that the award was based on “pure speculation” about how Carroll’s reputation was damaged.
Carroll filed his first lawsuit in November 2019.
She amended it after Trump disparaged her at a CNN town hall a day after the $5 million verdict, calling her account “fake” and “wacky.”
Trump is also suing Carroll for defamation, after she said “oh yeah, she did; oh yeah, she did” when asked on CNN about the jury’s finding that she did not commit a rape.
carroll want to dismiss that claimsaying that his statement was “substantially true” and reflected his thoughts when the verdict was read.
The case is Carroll v. Trump, US District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 22-10016. Carroll’s original lawsuit is Carroll v Trump in the same court, No. 20-07311.
Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; edited by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis
Our standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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