A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Donald Trump is liable for making defamatory statements against E. Jean Carroll in 2019, leaving it to a jury to determine how much the former president should pay in damages.
In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation after Carroll, a former New York City gossip columnist, accused the former president of sexually assaulting her in a department store in the 1990s. The jury in that case found that Trump defamed Carroll when he called her allegations a “hoax” on his social-media platform, Truth Social in 2022.
At the time, the panel awarded Carroll a $5 million judgment at the time in combined damages. “I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. This verdict is a disgrace — a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time!” the former president wrote on the network minutes after the verdict was publicized.
The second Carroll case revolves around statements Trump made three years earlier when the former journalist first came forward with her story.
The presiding justice, Lewis Kaplan, ruled in his Wednesday order that the earlier guilty verdict will inform the second defamation lawsuit initially set to begin on January 15, 2024, in the Big Apple. The date coincides with the crucial Iowa Republican Caucus vote.
The “jury found that Mr. Trump knew that his statement that Ms. Carroll lied about him sexually assaulting her for improper and ulterior purposes was false or that he acted with reckless disregard to whether it was false,” Kaplan wrote in a legal filing. “Whether Mr. Trump made the 2019 statements with actual malice raises the same issue.”
The ruling was hailed by Carroll’s legal representative, Roberta Kaplan, in a statement released shortly after the ruling. “We look forward to trial limited to damages for the original defamatory state.”
The former president’s attorney, Alina Habra, dismissed Kaplan’s ruling in the case, popularly known as Carroll II, as inconsequential. “We remain very confident that the Carroll II verdict will be overturned on appeal, which will render this decision moot,” Trump’s attorney said on Wednesday. “We also anticipate that the Second Circuit will stay this trial as it considers the meritorious defenses that have been raised by President Trump.”