Libel trial – Trump sentenced to $83.3 million in damages – News

  • A jury sentenced Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages, as various US media reports.
  • The US author E. Jean Carroll had sued the former US President Donald Trump.
  • Trump wants to appeal the verdict.

The jury in a federal court in New York has sentenced Donald Trump to pay damages of $83.3 million, the equivalent of almost 72 million Swiss francs. The trial concerned allegations of defamation. The plaintiff’s lawyers only asked for a sum of just over ten million dollars. Before the second trial began, Judge Lewis Kaplan had ruled that Trump’s comments were defamatory. Therefore, the jury only had to decide on the amount of compensation.

It was the second lawsuit by US author E. Jean Carroll, who accuses Trump of raping her in a department store in late 1995 or early 1996. The then US President described the allegations as a hoax and a lie in June 2019. The author subsequently filed a defamation lawsuit.

Legend:

Donald Trump is considered the most promising Republican candidate in the US presidential election this year.

Keystone/Andrew Harnik

In author E. Carroll’s first civil lawsuit, Donald Trump was sentenced in May 2023 to pay $5 million in damages for sexual assault. The New York jury considered it proven that Trump had attacked Carroll in a New York luxury department store, sexually abused him and later slandered him.

Lower threshold for civil litigation


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In civil proceedings in the USA, there is a lower threshold for a guilty verdict than in criminal proceedings: in civil law, this means that the jurors view an act as more likely than rather unlikely. In criminal trials, however, guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The verdict is not yet final. Trump has already announced on his online network Truth Socal that he wants to appeal the verdict. The former US president denies all allegations and appeared in person several times at the second trial compared to the first. In the meantime, the judge threatened him with expulsion because Trump was disturbing through numerous expressions of opinion.

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