0
0
According to recent reports, a journalist who accused former President Donald Trump of rape received an order from a court requiring him to pay an astounding ₹690 crore. This choice has spurred extensive conversations and arguments on the responsibility of public individuals and the value of aiding sexual assault survivors. Even if a sizable sum has been granted, this subject must be approached with humility and empathy in light of the seriousness of the case and its possible influence on similar instances involving influential people in the future.
Trump mandated that the journalist who accused him of raping her receive ₹690 crore.
A Manhattan jury delivered a devastating verdict on Friday, ordering Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll. Carroll claimed that by denying he had assaulted her, he had damaged her credibility as a reliable journalist.
After a five-day trial, jurors in Manhattan federal court returned a verdict in less than three hours. The amount Carroll had requested, a minimum of $10 million, was significantly less than what the former US president was compelled to pay. Trump intends to file an appeal.
In his quest to win back the White House in the US election in November, Trump has made Carroll’s case a point of contention. Trump is the front-runner to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the Republican primary; Biden defeated Trump in 2020.
Trump did not attend the verdict in the courtroom, although he did attend the majority of the trial.
Trump said on social media, “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon.” “THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”
With her arms wrapped around two of her attorneys, Carroll, eighty, exited the courtroom.
“This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she’s been knocked down and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down,” Carroll stated in a statement.
The former advice writer for Elle magazine sued Trump in November 2019 after he denied, five months earlier, that he had sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department shop in the mid-1990s.
A $83 million judgment against Trump for slander
Carroll said in court that Trump’s denials “shattered” her credibility as an objective reporter.
Carroll was given $18.3 million in compensatory damages by the anonymous jury, which consisted of seven men and two women. The amount granted also included $11 million for reputational loss. Carroll was also granted $65 million in punitive damages, which she claimed were necessary to prevent Trump from slandering her in the future.
The 77-year-old Trump insisted that Carroll had made up her narrative to increase sales of her novel and that he had never heard of her.
Carroll’s attorneys said that Carroll was a celebrity who was satiated by the limelight she received for standing up to her arch-enemy.
Another jury found in May 2023 that Trump had sexually assaulted and defamed Carroll, overturning a previous denial in October 2022, and ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million.
During his appeal, Trump deposited $5.55 million with the Manhattan court. It may take years for both appeals.
The previous decision, which said that Trump had pushed his fingers inside Carroll’s vagina, applied to the second trial, according to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over both proceedings. The jury just had to determine how much Trump ought to pay.
“IT WON’T DISSUPT US.”
Leading Trump’s defense attorney in Carroll’s case, Alina Habba, characterized Friday’s decision as political and forecasted that Trump would win his appeal.
Habba informed reporters, “President Trump is leading in the polls, and now we see what you get in New York.” “It will not deter us, we will keep fighting, and I assure you we didn’t win today, but we will win.”
During the judge’s relative Roberta Kaplan’s final statement for Carroll on Friday, Trump stormed out of the courtroom. However, he reappeared for Habba’s closing speech.
He has portrayed himself as the victim of politically driven falsehoods and an unjust, biased justice system by using his legal troubles.
In four different criminal charges, Trump has entered not-guilty pleas to 91 felony counts, including two that charge him with attempting to unlawfully reverse his election defeat in 2020. In addition, he is awaiting a ruling from a New York judge over the appropriate penalty in state Attorney General Letitia James’ $370 million civil fraud case against him and his namesake Trump Organization, which might come this month.
As Trump was whispering during the Carroll trial that the case was a “con job” and a “witch hunt” and that he still didn’t know who Carroll was, the judge repeatedly warned him to shut up.
FINAL SUMMARY
During her closing statement, Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, claimed that Trump had behaved toward her client as if he were above the law and that he ought to pay “dearly.”
Habba retorted that Trump’s denials, which started five hours later, were not what started the assaults; rather, it was the release of passages from Carroll’s memoir in a New York magazine. Carroll, Habba further said, was happy with her newfound notoriety and that coming forward had made her “happier than ever.”
Trump was on the witness stand for about four minutes on Thursday during his testimony because the court prohibited him from bringing up matters that had already been resolved during the first trial. He maintained his deposition evidence from October 2022, which the jury had seen, in which he referred to Carroll’s accusations as a “hoax” and stated that she was “mentally sick.”
From 1993 to 2019, Carroll contributed the “Ask E. Jean” column to Elle. She also often made appearances on television shows including “Today” on NBC and “Good Morning America” on ABC. She said that as a result of Trump, those appearances stopped.
