A Manhattan judge Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s bid for a new trial in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse case that resulted in a jury awarding the columnist $5 million.
Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the former president’s motion, ruling that “there was ample, arguably overwhelming evidence, that Mr. Trump forcibly digitally penetrated Ms. Carroll, thus fully supporting the jury’s sexual abuse finding.”
The 45th president had asked for a new trial claiming the damages award was excessive since the jury didn’t find Trump liable for rape.
But Kaplan found that the award wasn’t too high, saying it “did not deviate materially from reasonable compensation so as to make it excessive.”
“The jury in this case did not reach ‘a seriously erroneous result,’” Kaplan concluded. “Its verdict is not ‘a miscarriage of justice.’”
Carroll, 79, sued Trump in 2022 claiming that he assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room in the 1990s.
The Manhattan federal jury in April found the former president liable for sexual abuse of the “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist and for defaming her in a lengthy October 2022 post on his social media platform Truth Social in which he called her allegations a “hoax” and denied knowing her.
Carroll still has an open case claiming that Trump defamed her in 2019 when she went public about her allegations by denying knowing her which she said damaged her reputation as a journalist.
“Now that the court has denied Trump’s motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said in a statement. “She also looks forward to continuing to hold Trump accountable for what he did to her at the trial in Carrol I, which is scheduled to begin on January 15, 2024.”
Trump’s lawyers didn’t immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.