In a court filing on Friday, it was revealed that Donald Trump is willing to provide $5.6 million as security while he appeals the civil verdict against him for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and defaming her decades later. If Trump’s appeal is unsuccessful, Carroll would collect the $5 million that was awarded to her by a jury in May. However, if Trump’s appeal is successful, he will receive the security deposit back with any interest earned on such funds. If the case is sent back to U.S. District Court in Manhattan for further proceedings, the funds will remain with the court until any award to Carroll becomes final and un-appealable.
E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit
E. Jean Carroll filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump, current front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, claiming that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman store dressing room in the mid-1990s after a chance encounter there. She also claimed that he defamed her in statements he made while denying her allegations. In May, after a trial, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll, but not for raping her. The jury also found that he had defamed her.
Trump’s appeal
Trump has asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to overturn the verdict. Separately, he has asked District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan to order a retrial solely on the questions of monetary damages. Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina argued that the $2 million jurors awarded Carroll for Trump’s sexual abuse of her was “grossly excessive” under case law. Tacopina said Carroll’s damages for that claim should be “in the low six-figure range” at best. The defense attorney also argued that the $2.7 million in compensatory damages Carroll was awarded should be sharply reduced to no more than $368,000.
Carroll’s other lawsuit
Further, Carroll has filed another lawsuit against Trump, alleging that he defamed her with comments he made about her while president after she first went public with her rape claims. Carroll is seeking damages of at least $10 million in that case. Kaplan allowed her to amend her existing lawsuit to include comments Trump made about her in May on CNN, a day after he lost the first trial. Kaplan has scheduled a trial to begin on January 15 for this lawsuit.
Trump’s legal troubles
Aside from the lawsuits filed by Carroll, Trump is facing numerous legal troubles. He was indicted earlier this month by a federal grand jury in Miami on charges related to his retention of hundreds of classified documents at his Florida residence after he left the White House in January 2021. He has pleaded not guilty in that case. He has also pleaded not guilty in a New York state case to nearly three dozen criminal counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments made before the 2016 presidential election to two women who said they had sex with him. Trump is separately under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors for efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, and by an Atlanta prosecutor for his attempt to get Georgia officials to reverse President Joe Biden’s victory in that state that year.
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