Dawn
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16:47 Sep 08, 2025
A United States appeals court upheld on Monday a jury’s $83.3 million penalty against President Donald Trump for defaming author E. Jean Carroll, whom he was found to have sexually assaulted. The January 2024 order consisted of $65m in punitive damages after the jury found Trump acted maliciously in his many public comments about Carroll, $7.3m in compensatory damages and $11m to pay for an online campaign to repair Carroll’s reputation. The civil order, which prompted an audible gasp in the federal court, far exceeded the more than $10m in damages for defamation that Carroll had sought. Trump — whom a jury found liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a separate federal civil case in New York — used his Truth Social platform at the time to fire off a spate of insulting messages attacking Carroll, the trial and the judge, whom he called “an extremely abusive individual”. ‘Substantial financial penalty’ “We hold that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s duly ren...