2024-01-27 04:00:59
Former US President Donald Trump was sentenced this Friday to pay $83.3 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her following accusing him of rape in 2019, the judge announced at the end of the jury’s deliberations.
This amount, much higher than the 10 million claimed by the writer and journalist, is broken down into 65 million dollars for damages and interest, 11 million for reparations for affecting her reputation and 7.3 million for financial compensation, according to media such as New York. Times and CNN.
After just over two hours of deliberations, the jury concluded that Carroll suffered more than “nominal damages” and Trump acted “maliciously, out of hatred, ill will, or spite, vindictively, or in indifference, recklessly or deliberately” once morest the writer and former journalist.
Read more: “I am here because Donald Trump raped me”: the crude account of the journalist who prosecuted the former US president.
“Absolutely ridiculous!… I will appeal,” he reacted on his Truth Social platform, where he once once more described the trial as a “witch hunt” orchestrated by Democratic President Joe Biden to prevent his return to the White House in the elections. November. He also lashed out at the “judicial system out of control.”
In May of last year, another jury had found the Republican guilty of sexual assault and defamation, condemning him to pay $5 million to Carroll. The tycoon appealed the ruling.
Find out: The sentence once morest Trump for sexual assault of a journalist does not stop his political career in the United States
The former president (2017-2021) had left the courtroom furious when the prosecution presented its final arguments on Friday morning before returning when it was his lawyer’s turn to defend his case.
The investigating judge, Lewis Kaplan, advised the jury, whose names have remained anonymous throughout the process, to maintain their anonymity. “My advice is to never reveal that you were on this jury,” he said.
Carroll, an 80-year-old writer and journalist, demanded $10 million from the Republican for damages to her reputation following statements made in 2019 by the then president, following the publication of a book and an article in which she claimed that the real estate magnate He had raped her in a department store in the 1990s.
“He does what he wants”
Trump, who often calls the journalist “moron” or “sick,” then said that the journalist “wasn’t his type” and that he had invented the rape to “sell his new book.” “She destroyed my reputation,” the writer maintained at trial.
“The man who sexually assaulted (Carroll) does what he wants, lies, defames,” said one of the writer’s lawyers in the final arguments.
“He continues to use his enormous platform to hurt her (…) and can you imagine what his followers did? They have not stopped pursuing her,” she added. The question is how much money “it will take for me to stop doing it,” she said.
During the morning, Trump already sent a barrage of messages once morest the judge, the plaintiff and her lawyer.
After comparing the case with that of Monica Lewinsky, the intern who, between 1995 and 1996, had a sexual relationship with then-President Bill Clinton, he repeated that E. Jean Carroll, “who was in the doldrums and failing in life (. ..) has gained the money and fame he so desired.”
“A president of the United States was accused of doing something he did not do for an UNKNOWN woman, TO HIM, who was seeking fame, fortune and publicity for her ridiculous book,” Trump said, angrily attacking the judicial system, which in his trial is “chaos.”
Faced with insistence on taking the stand to defend himself, Trump was finally able to do so on Thursday, but the investigating judge limited his intervention to three questions to which he had to answer with a yes or no.
“He says something that I consider to be false,” Trump said before Kaplan cut him off.
“This is not the United States,” the billionaire bellowed as he left the courtroom, visibly angry.
This is one of the multiple judicial fronts that await the former president in the midst of the electoral race this year.
There are 91 criminal charges pending once morest him in various courts, most of them related to his attempts to remain in power following the elections four years ago won by Democrat Joe Biden, whose victory remains unrecognized.
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