A federal judge Wednesday rejected former President Trump’s request for a new trial after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, an appointee of former President Clinton, said the jury’s verdict was not seriously erroneous or a serious miscarriage of justice, rejecting Trump’s claim that the $5 million in damages he was ordered to pay was excessive and other arguments.
“There is no basis for disturbing the jury’s sexual assault damages,” Kaplan wrote in the 59-page ruling. “And Mr. Trump’s arguments with respect to the defamation damages are no stronger.”
The nine-member jury found Trump liable in May for sexually abusing Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, in the mid-1990s at a New York City department store. The jury also found him liable for later defaming Carroll in an October 2022 statement denying her story.
The former president, who has denied Carroll’s claims, appealed the judge’s ruling later Wednesday and is appealing the jury’s original verdict. He also faces another lawsuit from Carroll — set to go to trial in January — in which Trump is accused of defaming Carroll during his presidency when the writer initially came forward with her story.
In asking for the new trial, Trump noted that the jury found him liable for sexual abuse rather than rape, which are both forms of sexual battery but have different definitions under New York law. Carroll has long described the incident as rape, including after the verdict.
“The definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere,” Kaplan ruled. “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan said the $2 million in damages the jury ordered for the sexual battery count “did not deviate materially from reasonable compensation so as to make it excessive.”
The Hill has reached out to a Trump attorney for comment.
“Now that the court has denied Trump’s motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her in Carroll II,” said Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge. “She also looks forward to continuing to hold Trump accountable for what he did to her at the trial in Carrol I, which is scheduled to begin on January 15, 2024.”
Trump’s attorneys, however, have further contended the damages he was ordered to pay for Carroll’s defamation claim was also excessive, citing an expert witness, professor Ashlee Humphreys, whom Carroll called during the trial.
“The jury considered all of Professor Humphreys’s testimony, including the purported flaws Mr. Trump’s counsel attempted to draw out on cross examination and in summation, and determined that her testimony still was worthy of sufficient weight to reach the $1.7 million it awarded for the reputation repair program,” Kaplan ruled. “None of Mr. Trump’s challenges to that testimony, considered separately or collectively, supports a determination that the jury’s compensatory damages award was seriously erroneous, egregious, or against the weight of the evidence.”
— Updated at 12:41 p.m.