Trump’s defamation trial: Judge will not delay payment of $83.3M in damages owed to E. Jean Carroll
In one of several high-profile legal battles consuming Donald Trump’s time and legal fees, Trump’s legal team was trying to delay an $83 million judgement he was ordered to pay 80-year-old author and former magazine journalist E. Jean Carroll for defamation damages owed her. Yesterday, the Judge overseeing Trump’s defamation trial ruled that the former president will not be able to postpone that payment.
In January, a federal jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages as a result of Trump’s defamatory statements denying he raped her, saying she wasn’t his type, and accusing her of making up the allegation to boost sales of her book. ~ CNN
Despite Trump’s attempts to delay paying the $83 million, the court denied his requests. As a result, Carroll can now begin the process of collecting on the judgment.
The story behind Carroll and the ex-president has its roots dating back to the 1990s when Carroll claimed that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a New York City department store. Trump vigorously denied those allegations, paving the way for Carroll to file a defamation lawsuit against him. In 2023, Trump was found guilty of both defaming Carroll and sexually abusing her; and a jury awarded her $5 million in damages.
Trump, being Trump, continued to vigorously defame Carroll, and on January 26, 2024, in the midst of his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump was again found liable for defamation against Carroll. But this time the jury awarded her a total of $83.3 million, above, and well beyond the original $5 million.
Yesterday, ABC News reported that Trump has secured a $91,630,000 bond for the judgment in his defamation case brought by Carroll. In Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s ruling yesterday, the judge wrote that he would not delay Trump’s deadlines for posting a bond that would ensure 80-year-old writer E. Jean Carroll her $83 million payment.
The judge said any financial harm to the Republican front-runner for the presidency results from his slow response to the late-January verdict in the defamation case resulting from statements Trump made about Carroll while he was president in 2019 after she revealed her claims against him in a memoir. ~ The Associated Press
In addition to the money he owes Carroll, Trump is also looking at a March 25 deadline to pay $454 million in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case. In that landmark ruling, a New York judge ordered Trump and his companies to pay damages for engaging in a years-long scheme to defraud financial institutions with inflated financial statements about his wealth, which he used to secure loans and make deals during the rise of his real estate empire.
Trump is now seeking new trial in defamation case involving E. Jean Carroll in the hopes of overturning that verdict; and he will be appealing his civil fraud ruling. For a rundown on the four criminal cases with which Trump is embroiled, see the video below.
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(Cover photo of E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump, Image credit: Twitter)
Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today
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