A federal judge has denied former President Donald Trump's request for a new trial in the civil suit brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who was awarded an $83.3 million judgment by a jury that found Trump liable for defamation in January.
The judge also denied a request to strike the damages in the case, which Trump had called "entirely out of proportion" with Carroll's reputational injury.
"Mr. Trump's argument is entirely without merit both as a matter of law and as a matter of fact," U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in an 18-page decision Thursday.
An attorney for Trump said he intends to appeal the decision.
"We categorically disagree with Judge Kaplan's decision," said Alina Habba. "It ignores long-standing constitutional principles and is a prime example of the lawfare raging across this country. We are confident that this decision will be overturned by the Second Circuit."
Trump requested the new trial in a March filing that listed grievances about the trial and pretrial decisions, including the exclusion of evidence related to Trump's "state of mind" when he defamed Carroll.
A well-known advice columnist, Carroll penned a tale in New York magazine back in 2019 accusing Trump of a sexual assault incident in a department store dressing room during the mid-1990s.
When the story was released, Trump, who was serving as president at the time, refuted the accusations, labeling Carroll as a "whack job" and asserting that he had never crossed paths with her.
In a filing made in March, he contended that the jury's determination could not have reasonably concluded that Carroll suffered damages due to his comments, citing that they were made a mere five hours after the story's publication. Trump's legal team highlighted a small amount of negative feedback Carroll received within that "five-hour gap." On the other hand, Carroll's legal representatives argued that she faced a continuous barrage of ridicule and threats following Trump's response.
Trump asserted that the jury's verdict was rooted in "'confusion, speculation, or prejudice' rather than the 'evidence presented at trial.'"
Kaplan pointed out in his writing that Trump's argument failed to acknowledge the fact that both the jury and the court had determined the statements Trump was taken to court over "were false, defamatory, and made with both actual and common law malice."
"It disregards the reality that those defamatory statements were seen by a minimum of 85 to 104 million individuals," Kaplan elaborated.
