A federal judge ruled that Donald Trump is liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll while he was president, meaning a jury at a January trial will only need to decide what damages the former president must pay for calling her a liar when she accused him of rape.
(Bloomberg) — A federal judge ruled that Donald Trump is liable for defaming E. Jean Carroll while he was president, meaning a jury at a January trial will only need to decide what damages the former president must pay for calling her a liar when she accused him of rape.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday found that jurors in a May trial already established that Trump sexually abused Carroll. That jury, which awarded Carroll $5 million, also held that Trump defamed her by calling her a liar on social media last year.
The decision is a significant setback for Trump, whose lawyers wanted another chance to convince a jury that Trump’s statements denying the attack were not defamatory. The upcoming trial is focused on statements Trump made while he was in the White House in 2019, when Carroll went public with her claim.
“We look forward to trial limited to damages for the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made about our client,” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement. Carroll is seeking another $10 million in damages.
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Trump attorney Joe Tacopina declined to comment on the ruling.
The trial is one of several that Trump faces as he campaigns to return to the White House in the 2024 election, though he isn’t required to appear in person because it’s a civil case. He didn’t appear in court or take the witness stand in the first Carroll trial, though jurors watched a recording of his sworn deposition in which he denied assaulting the author.
In the first trial, the jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1996 and then defamed her by publicly accusing her of fabricating the assault for political purposes and to help sell a book. But the panel did not find Trump liable for rape, which largely refers to intercourse under New York law. Trump has appealed the verdict.
In August, the judge threw out a defamation claim that Trump filed against Carroll, in which he accused her of trashing his reputation by continuing to say she had been raped rather than sexually abused.
(Updates with detail from the ruling.)
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