Judge refuses Trump new trial after $5 million E. Jean Carroll sex abuse verdict

By Shayna Jacobs, The Washington Post

Updated: July 19, 2023 Published: July 19, 2023

E. Jean Carroll walks out of Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in New York. A federal judge upheld a $5 million jury verdict against former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, July 19, rejecting the former president’s claim that the award was excessive and that a jury in a civil case vindicated him by failing to conclude that he raped Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the 1990s.(AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

NEW YORK - A federal judge has rejected former president Donald Trump’s request for a new trial or an adjustment of damages, paving the way for author and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll to collect a $5 million judgment awarded by a New York jury for defamation and battery caused by sexual abuse.

In a lawsuit, Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room decades ago during an unexpected encounter, saying she felt shame and told no one other than two friends, who testified at the trial.

At the time of the alleged assault, Carroll hosted a TV show and Trump was a real estate tycoon with celebrity status.

In May, Trump was found liable by a federal jury of discrediting Carroll by trashing her on social media last year, repeating assertions that Carroll was lying about an encounter with him in the mid-1990s. He has also tried to paint Carroll as mentally unstable. The jury also ruled against Trump on a battery claim, finding that sexual abuse had occurred.

“There is no basis for disturbing the jury’s sexual assault damages,” U.S. District Court Lewis A. Kaplan wrote in the ruling. “And Mr. Trump’s arguments with respect to the defamation damages are no stronger.”

Trump is separately appealing the verdict.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, praised the decision. Another trial is scheduled to start in January. That matter, the earlier of two lawsuits filed by Carroll, stems from derogatory comments Trump made about her in 2019 while in office after the allegations were first made public.