In one of the biggest, certainly most salacious, court cases in recent memory—this one involving an ex-president of the United States—a New York jury awarded writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in damages. In a three-hour deliberation, the jury found against Donald Trump for ruining her career as a writer and advice columnist. It was the second multi-million-dollar award leveled against Trump in a case involving the New York writer.
In 2019, Carroll accused Trump of sexual assault, claiming he groped her in a New York City department store dressing room in the 1990’s. While the violation occurred decades ago, Carroll benefitted from a state law allowing victims of sexual assaults to file years, even decades, after the crime.
Last May, another New York jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and liable against Carroll and awarded her $5.55 million dollars. Trump’s lawyers deposited the sum with a New York federal court while the case is appealed. Trump also vowed to appeal last Friday’s judgment.
While Carroll was successful in her suit against Trump, the ex-president has been similarly accused by at least 26 other women, dating back to his days as hotelier and casino owner. Beyond Carroll, none of Trump’s other accusers have filed charges against him.
During his campaign for president in 2016, Trump also paid an adult film star $130,000 to remain silent about a sexual tryst she said she had with him. The five-day trial often overshadowed many other important events taking place across the country and around the world, including the current border crisis, a presidential primary election and on-going wars in Ukraine and Israel. Much of the coverage of the trial focused not only on the subject matter of the case but also the courtroom behavior by the ex-president’s counsel and the comportment of Trump, himself.
Trump was often reprimanded by federal judge Lewis Kaplan for sharing his too loud opinions of the testimony from witnesses called on by Carroll’s counsel. Adding to the theatrical nature of the trial, Kaplan also issued several stern warnings to Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, once going so far as to address her courtroom behavior as disrespectful and threatening her with time in ‘lock up’ if she didn’t change.
During closing arguments last Friday, Trump abruptly left his seat in the courtroom and stormed out, followed by a close aide and his security team. He was not present when the nine-person jury returned with its verdict, a verdict reached in two hours forty-five minutes.
While Trump has often derided a court system that he regularly says is “rigged” against him, the jury in this case was made up of six men and three women. It ranged in age from 25-65 and included a janitor, a juror working toward a graduate degree, two members who said they get their news from CNN and two others who say they specifically avoid television news.
The damages as determined by the jury included a combined $18.3 million for damage to Carroll’s reputation and another $65 million in punitive damages. The jury decided only how much Trump would have to pay, not if he was liable. That had already been adjudicated.
Like the $5 million judgment in the first trial, Trump will have to come up with the $83.3 million judgment and place it in a court account pending the appeal.
The verdict, along with other pending legal cases against him in Florida, Georgia, New York and Washington, have created a cacophonous sideshow and barrage of recrimination against a judicial system Trump and supporters say is rigged against him. They may soon get that chance when another New York court rules on whether or not Trump misstated the value of his business assets. The penalty could be as big has $370,000,000.
“As a journalist,” said Rebecca Aguilar, a veteran and highly respected reporter and former president of the Society of Professional Journalists, “our job is to focus on just telling the truth, the facts, the information that is coming out as it concerns Mr. Trump.” Aguilar, the first ever Latina to preside over the 115-year-old organization, said it is not a journalist’s job to change people’s minds. “We should not allow what we see happening in this country today” to tilt a story, she said. The facts are the only thing that matter, said Aguilar.
Others, including one university law professor who asked her name not to be used and a self-admitted “non-Trumper,” said she had serious problems with Trump being charged with the crime decades after it allegedly took place. It just doesn’t seem right, she said, that the statute of limita- tions doesn’t apply in this matter.
Former Denver City Councilwoman Debbie Ortega said it’s not so much the ex-president but the history of crimes he’s been accused of so often that bother her. “The President should be someone who commands respect and not through bullying tactics,” Ortega said. “We should all be demanding much more in the president who represents all of us.”
While Trump now has one trial behind him, albeit one with an unsuccessful outcome, his time between now and November will be divided between time on the campaign trail and, of course, the courtroom.
Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington, D.C. on March 4th. Dates for his Florida case in which he’s accused of illegally possessing classified documents have been stayed by federal judge Aileen Canon. Trial dates have also not been confirmed in Georgia where he is scheduled to stand trial with more than a dozen other defendants.
Trump also has appealed to the Supreme Court on whether or not his name can even appear on the November ballot. Both Colorado and Maine courts have ruled that Trump violated section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. The amendment says that officials who have “engaged in insurrection” are disqualified from ever serving in office again.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the Colorado case early in February.
