The United States court upheld on Monday (8) the conviction that obliges former President Donald Trump to pay $ 83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll. The decision was made by the 2nd Circuit Appeals Court in New York, which rejected the request for annulment of the January 2024 verdict.
Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine, accused Trump of having sex sexually attacked in 1996 at a Bergdorf Goodman department store tasher in Manhattan. The former president always denied the prosecution and said in 2019 that the writer “was not her type” and would have invented the story to promote her memories book.
These statements motivated the process by defamation. According to the court, Trump deliberately damaged the journalist’s reputation by repeating the attacks on interviews and social networks. The jury concluded that the fixed compensation were “fair and reasonable” in the face of emotional and image damage suffered by Carroll.
The set amount includes $ 18.3 million for moral damages and reputation and $ 65 million in punitive compensation. The value, which is already considered one of the largest against a public figure in the United States, should grow even more because of interest application.
This was not Trump’s first defeat in the courts in Carroll -powered lawsuits. By 2023, he had already been ordered to pay $ 5 million in another civil action, also for defamation and sexual assault. At the time, the jury concluded that there was abuse, but not rape under the New York Law.
In the appeal rejected on Monday, the Republican lawyers claimed that the Supreme Court’s decision, which expanded its criminal immunity in 2024, should also apply to this civil process. They also stated that the statements made in 2019 occurred in the exercise of their presidential functions. The court, however, did not accept the arguments.
Throughout the trials, Trump has criticized the process and said he was the target of a defamation attempt to prevent his return to the White House. He came to attend the second trial, held during his presidential campaign in 2024, but was not present in the first.
With the new defeat, Trump remains forced to pay the millionaire compensation, which adds to the various judicial battles he faces while trying to maintain political influence in the country. Already Carroll, now 81, follows as one of the most active voices in collecting the former president’s liability for his actions.
