After the decision was announced, E. Jean Carroll and her lawyers locked hands as they stood for the jury to exit, and multiple jurors appeared to nod toward them as they left the courtroom for the final time.

Carroll and her lawyers immediately broke into a group hug as soon as Kaplan dismissed the parties.

Trump's defense team promptly exited the courtroom once they were dismissed, and his attorney Alina Habba thanked the court's staff for their service.

Shortly after Judge Kaplan's deputy read the verdict, the judge thanked the jury for their service and offered them a suggestion about interacting with the media.

"My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury, and I won't say anything more about it," Kaplan told the jury.

Writing on his social media platform, former President Trump called the $83 million decision "Absolutely ridiculous!" and said he will appeal.

The former president was not in the courtroom when the decision was announced.

Former President Donald Trump must pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her in 2019 after she accused him of sexually assaulting her in a department store in the 1990s.

The jury determined that Trump must pay $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages.

Carroll had sought at least $12 million for reputation repair, plus additional compensatory and punitive damages.

A separate jury last year found Trump liable for sexually assaulting then defaming Carroll, awarding her $5 million in damages.

The current jury of nine New Yorkers -- including a former schoolteacher, a transit worker, and a property manager -- rendered a verdict after deliberating for just under three hours.

The jury in former President Donald Trump's defamation damages case has reached a verdict.

The judge has called the parties back into the courtroom to hear the verdict read.

The jury will announce whether they have found E. Jean Carroll suffered damages as a result of Trump's statements, and, if so, how much they award Carroll in both compensatory and punitive damages.

Trump attorney Alina Habba, in her closing argument, questioned the sincerity of E. Jean Carroll's claims of emotional and professional harm and accused her of trying to pin the comments of Twitter trolls on a president of the United States.

"Ms. Carroll has failed to show she is entitled to any damages at all," Habba said.

Habba attempted to suggest that Donald Trump could not defend himself and that Carroll had paid for a lawyer for her friend Carol Martin, who testified as a hostile witness for the defense -- but Carroll's attorneys objected and Judge Lewis Kaplan sustained the objection.

"If you violate my instructions again, Ms. Habba, there could be consequences," the judge warned.

Habba said that Carroll failed to prove causation, slowly annunciating the word loudly into the microphone.

"They have to prove a direct causal connection between the harm they say she suffered and [Trump's] statements," Habba said, arguing that there were independent critics messaging Carroll before Trump issued his defamatory statements denying Carroll's June 2019 sexual assault allegation.

"This is the beauty and dangers of free speech in America. Everyone is entitled to their opinion," Habba said, asserting that Trump has no more control over the thoughts and feelings of social media users "than he does the weather."

"It is Ms. Carroll's burden, not President Trump's, to prove his statements are the cause of any harm, and clearly she has failed to meet that burden," Habba argued.

She also questioned the legitimacy of the harm Carroll claims to have suffered. "Who is E. Jean?" Habba asked, telling the jury there are two versions, and asserting that the true E. Jean Carroll is a narcissist out for fame and attention, "and the one who comes to court to get money from my client."

Habba also chided Carroll for deleting messages containing death threats -- which Carroll said she did because they were painful to see -- and for never calling the police.

"She deleted her own evidence," Habba said. "She has to give them to you to support their claim for damages, but they're not here and that's a fact."

As Trump looked on, hunched forward, hands folded on the table, Habba quoted his brief testimony saying he did not intend to hurt Carroll.

"We do not know the true identities of the people who sent the messages to Ms. Carroll," Habba said. "President Trump should not have to pay for their threats. He does not condone them. He did not direct them. All he did was tell his truth."