Donald Trump, sentenced to pay US$83.3 million in damages to journalist Carroll

The former president of the United States donald trump (2017-2021) was sentenced this Friday by a federal jury to pay US$83.3 million in damages for defamation to E. Jean Carroll in 2019, when he said that he did not know the journalist and that her accusation of sexual abuse was false.

After three hours of deliberating, the jury made up of seven men and two women unanimously decided that the favorite in the Republican presidential primaries should pay 18.3 million in damages and 65 million more in punitive damages, figures much higher than those that had been considered during the trial.

After the reading of the resolution on the 26th floor of the court in southern Manhattan, Carroll He hugged his lawyers, but did not want to make statements to the press upon leaving the court.

trumpwho was present on the last day of the trial, left the court before the jury’s verdict was known and on his social network, Truth Social, described it as “totally ridiculous”.

“There is no justice in the United States anymore. Our judicial system is broken and unfair“, he wrote, without mentioning the complainant on this occasion.

During the two weeks of the trial, the magnate did not stop publishing on his networks that he did not know Carroll and that the trial was a witch hunt, to such an extent that some of his comments were used as evidence by Carroll’s legal team. Carroll.

Carroll’s second victory

This is the second time that the journalist and her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, have won a trial against Trump. Last May, a jury convicted the former president of sexual abuse for inserting his fingers into Carroll’s vagina without consent, as well as of defamation (in other Trump comments) and to pay an amount of US$5 million.

In his closing arguments, Kaplan pointed out today that for a man as attached to money as Trump, the only way to dissuade him from continuing his attacks against Carroll is that one had to face the payment of an amount “unusually high” .

Although he acknowledged that Trump’s wealth is so great that he could pay a million dollars a day for ten years and still have money to live on for the rest of his life.

In this trial, Carroll’s legal team argued that after the comments made by the then president, the journalist lost her credibility as a columnist – for years she has given her advice to readers in Elle magazine – as well as her versatility, since now the media only contacts her to talk about Trump.

In addition, she began to be harassed by the Republican’s followers: Carroll With a broken voice, she read some of the threats she had received online and recalled that the day Trump denied the accusations, she received emails threatening her with death, but she deleted them because it was “your first instinct”, so he could not provide proof.

For its part, Trump’s defense argued that when Carroll decided to make public the sexual harassment of trump Her career and popularity as a columnist and writer had already deteriorated, and she took flight precisely as a result of her accusations against Trump, which gave her more followers and fame.

And regarding the harassment he has received on social media, the lawyers are trying to demonstrate that this occurred because he accused Trump of rape in the first instance and not because of Trump’s response and that the politician is not responsible for ‘trolls’ in social networks.

Furthermore, they tried to paint Carroll as a person “narcissistic” and “addicted to herself” by displaying text messages that journalist Carol Martin’s friend had sent to her close circle.

One month of electoral victories and trials for Trump

The day before the trial began, Trump won his first pre-election victory after sweeping more than 50% of the votes in the Iowa caucuses, and last Tuesday Trump won the Republican primaries again with more than 50%. Hampshire.

In addition, this month the final arguments were concluded in the civil case for fraud against his family business, in which the former president faces a fine of up to US$370 million and a lifetime ban in the real estate sector of the state of New York. .

Outside New York, Trump faces four other criminal cases: two for trying to reverse the result of the 2020 election, in which he lost against the current president, Joe Biden; one for taking classified documents from the White House to his Florida residence; and one related to payments to porn actress Stromy Daniels to hide an old affair.