Former President Donald Trump must pay writer E. Jean Carroll over $83 million in damages for repeatedly defaming her, a jury found Friday.
The nine-person jury began deliberations in federal court in New York at 1:40 p.m. ET and reached a verdict in just under three hours.
Trump’s attorney Alina Habba contended that Carroll “had failed to show she is entitled to any damages at all” because she “actively sought the comments and the attention” she received.
Wow. They actually used the “she was asking for it” argument against a victim of sexual assault.
Also, he’s still not going to shut up about it and will land back in court under additional defamation charges.
Not exactly. It’s far more insidious (and stupid). Her tact was to show that Carroll already received her financial reward by all the books and news appearances (i.e. the “comments and attention”). Basically, “Sure, she was raped, but look how well she profited from it!”
Too bad that kind of argument is only really relevant to the first trial. This one was punitive damages for failing to shut up after losing the first one, the purpose of which is to punish Trump so he thinks twice about doing it again, not award reparations to Ms. Carroll.
Alina Habba is truly the lawyer Trump deserves.
I agree, and my comment was intended as a reference not to the original rape but to the defense saying that she did not deserve any additional compensation due to Trump’s ongoing defamation because she wanted to profit off of it.
If I remember, one of his initial defenses against the allegations of rape was that the woman accusing him was too unattractive to rape, while other defenses were “they just let you do it.” I was thinking about the ironic application of the “asking for it” argument being applied to the additional judgement of defamation.
He’s going to triple down on this though, because he never thinks twice about anything. I don’t know if he is actually playing the game of “never admit to being wrong even when you are” or if he’s simply delusional enough to have reconstructed reality in his own brain, but I’d lay a wager that he’s not going to be able to shut up about this, even now. I don’t think it will even take a reporter triggering him by asking about it. I think it’s just going to pop out in one of his word salad campaign rambles.
I think it’s just going to pop out in one of his word salad campaign rambles.
And I can’t wait for that to happen, because I’m sure a third jury will be so pleased (/s) he did it a third time.
If a girl ask you to have sex with her and latter says she was rapped. How do you prove it?
Or the other way, if a couple are ready to have sex and he starts to be agresive to the point she does not want to any more, how does she proves it?
When there are only 2 people in the room, how do you prove the otherone is not telling the truth?
The sheer speed at which the jury came to this determination is a really good sign that everyone on the jury was like “fuck this dude in particular”. Not only that, what I think was hilarious was that Trump’s testimony about his valuation in his NY civil trail was submitted and accepted as evidence for the determination on this fine. Like literally some Loony Toons Wile E. Coyote exploding in your face kind of thing.
This was such a massive L for Trump’s legal team that I believe the correct lawyer term is HA HA HA HAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA!!
I swear, I’m just waiting for what creative backhoing their graves Trump’s team will be doing in the appeals.
What’s that saying? “Speech is free. Lies are expensive.”
“Speech is free. Lies are expensive.”
I’m gonna go ahead and borrow this, and then save it for later.
I believe the correct lawyer term is HA HA HA HAHAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA!!
Lawyer here. Can confirm.
Wow, 3x the money in punitive damage. Imagine how bad it’d be if this country did anything but fine rich people for being evil…
I overshot the damages award in a previous comment I made. I thought it was going to be closer to $150 million, but $83 million is still substantial. Plus there is a strong likelihood E. Jean Carroll and Robbie Kaplan could sue Donald Trump for defamation again for all the things he posted during this trial.
It’s already happening. He’s probably defaming her on Truth Social right now while OD’ing on McDonald’s.
Well he a billionaire so $83 million is a drop in the bucket. He’s probably got that much as change in the couch /s
Waiting for the SCOTUS to (again) reduce punitive damage limits in order to protect their special boy.
Historically, they HATE punitive civil damages and look for cases to cut them back. That’s where the current ~4x limit currently exists, which even in the State Farm decision was clearly flagged as toeing the line.
Just look at how little actual damage Exxon ever paid for the Valdez spill. Or McDonalds for the hot coffee. These punitive damages always have a habit of just evaporating after the headlines. Leaving the victim little better off than before.
I doubt that will happen. This is round two of defaming her; it’s already been established that he raped and defamed her, and it is glaringly obvious that he did it again (even before this verdict). His team will have to first appeal to the New York Court of Appeals, and it’s very unlikely that they’ll even hear it.
SCOTUS isn’t likely to do him a favor but virtue of the highest court in NY not hearing it and this being a very obvious case of repeat offense. They suck right now, and they’ve made some really awful arguments and rulings, but they haven’t exactly been a rubber stamp for Trump or Conservatives, either.
Thanks for the sanity check. I’m not lover of the current Court, but no, they’re not partisan (ruling for the GOP or Trump).
Been collecting cases to show this. Only been going a week so far:
It’s a civil case, unfortunately, so jail time was never an option. At the time the incident occurred, there was a five year statute of limitations, so Trump has never been charged criminally in the matter.
Fucking loser always loses.
He’s demonstrably the actual biggest loser in history, and he just got more loser-y folks… If any of you are starting to have your memories fade, here’s a quick refresher to read this morning and then copy and send to your aunt karen in Missouri.
- 0 re-elections won
- 1 term president
- 2 times impeached
- 3 marriages
- 4 inch lifts in his shoes
- 5 kids, from 3 different mothers
- 6 bankruptcies
- 7 US Capitol police suing him for Jan 6 terrorist insurrection and murder of police
- 8 trillion + dollars added to the US debt in a single term
- 9 trump lawyers sanctioned by federal judge for lying in frivolous election fraud lawsuits and ordered to pay defendant’s legal fees
- 10 years that trump paid $0 in income taxes between 2000 and 2015. ($0 to cops, teachers, roads, prisons, disaster relief, etc)
- 11 trump associates charged with serious crimes over the past 5 years
- 12 million votes (the big lie) - trump claims he won the 2020 election by 12 million votes when in reality, he lost by about 7 million votes.
- 13 of August, 2021 - one of multiple days that trump was supposed to magically become president again according to Qanon and a crack addicted pillow salesman (the two most respected information sources in the gop)
- 14 year old girl in a youth choir that trump approached in 1992 to say, “Wow! Just think - in a couple years I’ll be dating you.”
- 15 originally confirmed cases of COVID in the US trump said would soon be, “down to close to zero.” followed by, “like a miracle, it will disappear.” - over 1,000,000 Americans have since died of COVID as it continues to kill years later.
- 16 years old - age of daughter ivanka when she hosted “miss teen” pageant and, according to long time trump associate Noel Casler, “trump called her over in the middle of a rehearsal and had her give him a lap dance while he leered at the crew.”
- 17 known trump and russia investigations from local, state and federal prosecutors
- 18 gop senators that ignored trump threats / warnings and supported Biden admin’s infrastructure bill.
- 19 as in COVID19 - trump was verified as the single largest source of disinformation on the virus, with a Cornell study claiming that 38% of the “misinformation conversation” originated with trump
- 20 the day in January, 2021, when Biden was sworn in despite trump inciting a violent insurrection to stop election verification at the US Capitol.
- 21 gun salute that trump ordered for himself when he left office after a humiliating defeat, even though he never served in the military, famously called military members “losers” and “suckers” and actively avoided the draft with a cowardly “bone spurs” excuse.
- 22 date in August, 2021, when Alabama hate rally crowd booed trump for finally saying people should get vaccinated, only after 700,000 Americans have died due mostly to his failure as president
- 23 as in wrestlemania 23 in 2007 where trump, a cartoon level failure with no other prospects, participated in a fake bet that a proxy wrestler would win a fake fight on his behalf or he would shave his wig and hair plugs off.
- 24 day in August, 2021, when trump actually filed a lawsuit in Florida court against YouTube, a private company, demanding that they reinstate his YouTube channel like a desperate, irrelevant embarrassment with no platforms left to abuse.
- 25 plus credible sexual assault allegations against trump, spanning decades and with accusers starting as young as 13 years old at time of assault.
…
83 - million dollars Trump has to pay to E. Jean Carrol for defamation.
Some slight dissonance as you switch from “always loses” to “was president for 4 years”
Start the clock… how long until he fucks up this ruling too?
Are we using American time with Scaramuccis or British time with Lettuces?
The Liz Truss lettuce is tricky because while the lettuce only lasted 6 days, they didn’t start counting until 14/10/22 when she had been sworn in on 6/9/22.
Technically a Mooch (11 or 10 days) is longer than a lettuce, but the lettuce measurement was artificially shortened. ;)
Both are still longer than a Brittany Spears marriage at 55 hours.