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.

After walking out of the courtroom, former President Trump remained absent for the remainder of the plaintiff's closing statement, during which E. Jean Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan asked the jury to punish Trump for the "humiliation and mental anguish" he inflicted on Carroll.

"The evidence was as shocking as it was unmistakable," the attorney said. "Imagine for a second what it would feel like to go to sleep in one world and wake up in another world, one in which the president of the United States ... is attacking you.

Death threats followed death threats, which the lawyer said is what Trump wanted. "Donald Trump had said that Ms. Carroll should pay dearly and that Ms. Carroll had entered into dangerous territory," she told the jury.

She said the jury's compensatory damages award should include the cost to repair Carroll's reputation, which an expert testified could cost as much as $12 million.

"While Ms. Carroll built that career over five decades, Donald Trump shattered it in a matter of hours," she said. "People are not dying to write to an advice columnist who the president says is a disgrace."

The attorney also asked the jury to award punitive damages, arguing the defamation has not ceased, even after an earlier trial last May held him liable for sexual assault and defamation and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

She declined to name a dollar figure for the award, but said it should be at least as much as the $12 million repair campaign plus additional compensatory and punitive damages.

She urged the jury to consider one question: "How much will it take to make him stop?"

"You actually have the opportunity, maybe even a responsibility, to put an end to this by requiring Donald Trump to pay an amount of money large enough for him that it will finally make him stop," she said.