Trump Loses Appeal, Ordered to Pay $83 Million to E. Jean Carroll

A U.S. federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury’s decision ordering President Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll over repeated defamatory remarks he made after she accused him of sexual assault.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Trump’s challenge to the defamation award, calling the damages “fair and reasonable.” The three-judge panel cited the hundreds of death threats Carroll received and described Trump’s conduct as “remarkably high” in reprehensibility, possibly “unprecedented.”

Trump had sought to reduce the payout, arguing that the $65 million punitive damages were excessive and requesting a new trial in light of expanded presidential immunity. The court rejected those claims, saying his “extraordinary and unprecedented” attacks against Carroll justified the award, given the “unique and egregious facts” of the case.

The ruling addressed the second, more costly defamation award, which focused solely on Trump’s disparaging remarks in 2019 while he was president, after Carroll published a memoir accusing him of sexually assaulting her at a Manhattan department store in 1996.

Carroll testified that what began as a chance encounter turned into a violent assault in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse but not rape under New York law, awarding Carroll $5 million in damages.

Trump has consistently denied the allegations, calling Carroll a liar, “not my type,” and accusing her of fabricating the story to sell books. The appeals court noted that his attacks intensified as the trial neared, continuing even during proceedings, with Trump vowing he would defame Carroll “a thousand times.”

Trump’s legal team responded by denouncing the ruling as political persecution, while signaling plans to take the case to the Supreme Court.