E. Jean Carroll promises to do ‘something good’ with Trump's $83.3M

On Friday (Jan. 26), a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll over defamatory remarks he made about her while he was president in response to her sexual abuse accusation.

The millionaire sum comes on top of another $5 million penalty a separate jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll in a trial last year in which Trump was found liable for sexual abuse regarding Carroll’s abuse claims and for defamation for other comments he made about her in 2022.

The only question for the nine-person jury to decide this time around was how much in damages Trump should pay. After deliberating for three hours, the jury ordered Trump to pay $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages, Politico reported.

The millionaire penalty is meant to punish Trump for repeatedly using his public platform to denigrate Carroll in defiance of prior court rulings that his verbal attacks are false and defamatory.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled last fall that Trump defamed Carroll by saying in 2019 that he had never met her and that her book, in which she accused him of abusing her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in the mid-1990s, “should be sold in the fiction section.”

In a statement released Friday evening, Carroll said the verdict is “a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down, and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down.”

Moreover, she told The New York Times that she won’t waste “a cent” of it. “We’re going to do something good with it,” she promised.

According to a CNN article, some women who voted for him in 2016 and in 2020, have reported that they won’t vote for him this time around.

Moreover, Haley could take advantage of what has happened and remark Trump’s history of sexual abuse allegations.

The Washington Post reported on 2023 on the feelings of several GOP senators regarding the verdict: “He’s been found to be civilly liable. How could it do anything else but create concern?” Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said.

Friday’s result comes as Trump also awaits a verdict in a civil fraud trial in New York state court in which Attorney General Tish James’ office has accused him of massive business fraud. In that case, James has asked the judge to impose a financial penalty of $370 million, Politico reported.