Donald Trump hit with $83mn defamation penalty: Appeals court backs E Jean Carroll; jury cites malice

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld an $83.3 million jury award against US President Donald Trump for defaming writer E Jean Carroll in 2019, after she accused him of a decades-old rape in a Manhattan department store.

The ruling from the 2nd US circuit court of Appeals in Manhattan was unanimous and issued by a three-judge panel. "We hold that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury's duly rendered damages awards were reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case," the court wrote, as quoted by AP.

The panel also rejected Trump’s claim that a Supreme Court decision granting presidential immunity for official acts shielded him from liability in Carroll’s lawsuit.

Of the total award, $65 million consisted of punitive damages , after the jury concluded that Trump acted with malice. Carroll’s lawyers had urged jurors to impose a large penalty to stop him from continuing attacks.

Trump had assailed Carroll after she went public with her allegation, repeating his denials and criticisms on social media, at news conferences, and even during the trial.

The appeals court decision follows another loss for Trump in December, when a different 2nd Circuit panel unanimously upheld a $5 million civil verdict in Carroll’s favor. In that case, a jury found him liable for sexually abusing her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and for defaming her in 2022, after leaving office.