Trump Found Liable For More Damages In E. Jean Carroll Case

NEW YORK CITY, NY —Four months after a civil trial jury found that Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan federal court judge Lewis Kaplan ruled Wednesday that still more of the ex-president’s comments about her were libelous.

The decision means that an upcoming second trial, currently set for January, will concern only how much more Trump has to pay Caroll.

Caroll's second defamation lawsuit concerns libelous comments she said Trump made in 2019, after she first publicly stated he sexually attacked her in a dressing room after a chance meeting at a luxury department store in 1996.

The former president, 77, sued Carroll, 79, in June in a defamation suit that claimed the writer had falsely accused him of rape because the Manhattan federal jury found him liable for sexual abuse alone. The judge threw the argument out.

"Ms. Carroll's allegedly defamatory statements were substantially true as a matter of law," Kaplan wrote in his decision.

Trump was found liable for the sexual abuse of Carroll, who will receive $5 million in a judgment, in May.

Trump denied the accusations that he raped Carroll inside a Manhattan dressing room in 1996, but his bid for a second New York City trial was denied by a federal judge in July.

The unanimous verdict is likely to dog the former president as he mounts a campaign to reclaim the White House.

Jurors also found Trump defamed Carroll when he posted a statement that her case was "a complete con job" and "a Hoax and a lie," the New York Times first reported.

Trump posted a furious, all-caps reaction on his Truth Social site after the verdict.

"I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS," he wrote. "THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE - A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!"

The civil lawsuit didn't carry any criminal penalty, but nonetheless drew attention as it centered around rape accusations against a former president.

During the trial, Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan brought Trump's comments about sexual assault from the 2005 "Access Hollywood" into evidence.

"In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself," Kaplan said. "He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.