E. Jean Carroll defamation case: Judge denies Trump's motion for mistrial
A jury ordered Donald Trump to pay Carroll $83 million for defaming her.
Former President Donald Trump, at the end of a five-day trial, has been ordered to pay $83.3 million in damages to former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her allegations of sexual abuse.
Last year, in a separate trial, a jury determined that Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, and that he defamed her in a 2022 social media post by calling her allegations "a Hoax and a lie" and saying "This woman is not my type!"
Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has said he doesn't know who Carroll is.
Top headlines:
- Jury awards Carroll $83.3 million in damages
- Trump walks out during plaintiff's closing statement
- Trump testifies he denied allegations to defend himself
- Repairing Carroll's reputation would cost $12M, says expert
- 'I would love it,' Trump says to judge's threat to toss him
- Trump 'ended the world that I had been living in,' Carroll says
- 'This is not a do-over,' judge instructs jury
Trump is in court
Former President Donald Trump has arrived in court this morning.
The proceedings, which were scheduled to get underway at 9:30 a.m. ET, were off to a late start.
Carroll's attorneys expected to rest their case
If former President Trump takes the stand in his own defense today, it will happen after Carroll's attorneys rest their case.
Carroll's lawyers plan to call one final witness: Robbie Myers, the former editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, where Carroll was an advice columnist.
As part of the defense's case, Trump's lawyers also plan to call Carol Martin, a friend of Carroll's who testified in the earlier assault and defamation trial.
Trump indicates he'll attend trial today, could take stand
In a post to his Truth Social platform overnight, former President Trump indicated that he will attend his defamation damages trial today.
"But now I'm heading back to New York City for a trial based on False Accusations, from perhaps decades ago -- The woman has no idea when!" Trump wrote. Carroll has accused Trump of assaulting her around 1996 but can't pinpoint the year.
In a series of other posts, Trump also disparaged Carroll, said she made up her story, and suggested she was a paid political operative.
If Trump takes the stand today, he would be banned from using any of those defenses based on a pretrial ruling by Judge Lewis Kaplan which determined that -- because a jury last year already found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and then defaming her -- Trump is barred from arguing that he did not sexually abuse Carroll or that he never met her.
Trial now scheduled to resume Thursday
Former President Trump's defamation damages trial has been postponed an additional day and is scheduled to resume on Thursday morning.
The postponement was announced in an update posted to the court's docket.
The trial was adjourned Monday morning due to COVID-19 concerns.
Trump 'ended the world that I had been living in,' Carroll says
Recounting her response when Trump denied her rape claim in 2019, Carroll said that when Trump said "she's not my type," she interpreted it to mean "I'm too ugly to assault."
"What did it feel like to have the President of the United States say those things about you?" her attorney Roberta Kaplan asked.
"To have the President of the United States, one of the most powerful persons on Earth, calling me a liar for three days and saying I'm a liar 26 times -- I counted them -- it ended the world that I had been living in. And I entered a new world," Carroll responded as Trump sat at the defense table. "I was attacked. I was attacked on Twitter, I was attacked on Facebook, I was attacked in news blogs, I was attacked, brutally attacked, in messages."
The jury saw some of those messages, which mimicked Trump's statements, calling her "lying old hag" or saying "shame on you and your lying I-hate-Trump story."
Carroll testified that the messages started instantly and have not stopped. She said she sometimes receives "scores and scores, sometimes hundreds a day."