NEW YORK, April 25 - A federal judge on Thursday rejected Donald Trump's bid to throw out an $83.3 million defamation verdict in favor of the writer E. Jean Carroll, who said the former U.S. president defamed her after she accused him of raping her decades ago.requests for a new trial, or to have the former Elle magazine advice columnist's case thrown out altogether.
Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, said she was not surprised by the decision, and said the $83.3 million award was "entirely reasonable." She is not related to the judge., and also a defendant in four criminal cases, including an ongoing hush money trial., jurors agreed with Carroll that Trump defamed her in June 2019 by denying that he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Trump's lawyers argued that the judge instructed jurors improperly about the burden of proof needed to show malice, and erred in striking testimony about his state of mind. But the judge said Trump's attacks had been seen by more than 100 million people, and that Trump defamed Carroll with out-of-court statements even during the trial.