The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: defamation
Jury Orders Trump To Pay $83 Million In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case

Jury Orders Trump To Pay $83 Million In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case

Donald Trump will have to pay journalist E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in total damages in her defamation case, after nine jurors – seven men and two women – deliberated for just under three hours in a lower Manhattan federal courthouse Friday afternoon.

This is the second civil defamation and sexual abuse case Carroll brought against the ex-president, who is facing 91 state and federal criminal felony charges. Hen is also facing a civil business fraud case in New York, which has the potential to cost him hundreds of millions and bar him from doing business in the Empire State.

E. Jean Carroll’s case surrounded defamatory statements Trump made in June of 2019, and jurors were required to determine compensatory and punitive damages Trump owes for those statements. In the first case a jury determined Trump was liable for sexual abuse and defamation. The judge in both cases, senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan determined those facts would hold over for this case. He also had noted after the first case that Trump had effectively been found liable for rape, making the ex-president an adjudicated rapist.

Initially Carroll’s attorney asked for $10 million in compensatory damages in the current case, but expert testimony revealed it would cost the journalist, author, and advice columnist at least $12 million to repair her damaged reputation, and millions more in lost wages and other injuries.

Just Security last week described that as, “economic loss (lost income, career opportunities, or business deals due to damaged reputation) as well as for emotional distress (mental anguish, humiliation, and reputational harm).”

Carroll’s attorneys on Friday asked the jury for $24 million in compensatory damages. During closing arguments Carroll’s attorneys told the jury Trump’s claims of high net worth should be taken in to account when deciding how much to award Carroll in punitive damages.

Throughout the trial, and as recently as 11:30 AM Friday, Donald Trump continued his attacks, calling the trial the “E. Jean Carroll False Accusation Case,” and falsely claiming, “This is another Biden Demanded Witch Hunt against his Political Opponent, funded and managed by Radical Left Democrats. The Courts are totally stacked against me, have never been used against a Political Opponent, like this.”

The jury was required to answer these three “yes” or “no” questions:

“Did Ms. Carroll prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Ms. Carroll suffered more than nominal damages as a result of Mr. Trump’s publication of the June 21 and June 22, 2019 statements?”

“In making the June 21, 2019 statement, Mr. Trump acted maliciously, out of hatred, ill will, or spite, vindictively, or in wanton, reckless, or willful disregard of Ms. Carroll’s rights?”

“In making the June 22, 2019 statement, Mr. Trump acted maliciously, out of hatred, ill will, or spite, vindictively, or in wanton, reckless, or willful disregard of Ms. Carroll’s rights?”

During the final day of trial, Donald Trump stormed out of the courtroom when he was criticized by Carroll’s attorney, the highly-respected Roberta Kaplan. Judge Kaplan (no relation) announced that would become part of the trial record.

Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, repeatedly ignored Judge Kaplan’s directions to not question the facts of the case, that Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, yet she repeatedly ignored his warnings.

Judge Kaplan was forced repeatedly to warn and rebuke Habba, and at one point during closing arguments, he threatened Habba with jail if she continued.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

E. Jean Carrol

E. Jean Carroll Has Trump By The Wallet (But Is There Anything In It?)

The $83.3 million defamation judgment that writer E. Jean Carroll won Friday against Donald Trump will soon reveal the depth of his finances, long shrouded in smoke and mirrors, disclaimers that his financial statements are not to be trusted, and outright fabrications about his income and wealth.

The secret: does Trump have the money to pay Carroll?

Trump says he’ll appeal. He has few grounds to challenge the federal court judgment. But if Trump does appeal, it will open the curtain on his murky finances, where inflated valuations and concealed obligations are common.

Trump testified almost a year ago that he was sitting on $400 million of cash. Be skeptical. Don’t discount the prospect that Donald conflated his personal money with cash from his MAGA fundraising operations, which by law cannot be used to pay Carroll.

Appealing will require Trump to either deposit the entire judgment amount with the court or obtain a bond covering 20 percent of the judgment, close to $17 million.

If you were in the financial business, would you loan any money to Trump? What if he offered to pay a fat fee upfront? A high-interest rate? What real estate would you take as collateral to back the bond, knowing that if the appeal fails, Trump will fight to keep you from collecting?

As early as this week, Trump expects a Manhattan judge to impose a fine of more than $300 million for persistent financial fraud.

Naked Claim

Even if Trump had $400 million cash a year ago, an unverified claim, he has faced enormous legal and other bills since then. At the same time, his golf courses in Ireland and Scotland continued losing money, public records in London show.

The Carroll case and the expected New York State civil judgment for persistent fraud would consume 96 percent of the cash he claimed without proof.

Suppose Trump can’t financially qualify to pursue an appeal. In that case, Carroll can enforce judgment, seizing cash in bank accounts and putting liens on properties such as the portion of Trump Tower that Trump still owns and Mar-a-Lago in Florida. That would take time and cost Trump a small fortune in legal fees—he has a history of stiffing his lawyers—to delay paying Carroll. Meanwhile, interest costs will add to the $83.3 million obligation.

Trump hopes that an appeals court will find the damages award excessive. Death cases, after all, are often settled for a few million dollars, sometimes a few hundred thousand.

He is unlikely to prevail because the jury awarded $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages. As a rule, courts respect punitive awards of less than six times actual damages. This punitive award was about 3.6 times the compensatory damages.

The punitive damages are intended, as Carroll lawyer Roberta Kaplan told the federal court jury, to get Trump to stop lying about Carroll. After an earlier trial Trump was judged to have raped Carroll in a Bergdorf-Goodman department store dressing room and to have lied about it in repeated attacks on Carroll. More than two dozen other women have accused Trump of rape or sexual assault.

Trump insists he never met Carroll and “she’s not my type.” During a pretrial deposition he was shown a photo of himself and his first wife facing E. Jean Carroll and her then husband. Trump misidentified Carroll as his second wife, Marla Maples. When his lawyer interrupted to repair the damage Trump asserted that the sharply focused image was blurry.

Knowing Trump, I doubt he will stop attacking Carroll. His emotional state and views about women, frozen in puberty, and his declining mental health and cognitive capacity will not facilitate a proper change in conduct.

Fantasy Finances

Trump’s finances have always been exercises in fantasy. For example, in 1985, he bought Mar-a-Lago for $10 million. He claimed it was a cash purchase with no mortgage. I have in my home a Chase bank executive’s letter to Trump promising never to file the Mar-a-Lago mortgage at a courthouse, as banking laws require.

One reality is that Trump borrowed 125 percent of the purchase price, taking $2 million for himself while claiming he paid from his supposed rich cash deposits. A second is that bankers who declare their illegal conduct rarely get prosecuted or even disciplined, so weak is government regulation of finance in America.

The same year he bought Mar-a-Lago with the hidden mortgage, Trump also acquired the nearly finished Hilton Casino in Atlantic City. He paid with a $325 million loan, from which he shaved off a $5 million fee for himself.

Eventually, he owned three Atlantic City casinos, yet he never invested a dime in that New Jersey resort town. It was all borrowed money. Because he took fees for himself from the loan proceeds, his investment was less than zero, just as with Mar-a-Lago.

Only a foolhardy or corrupt banker would issue Trump a bond enabling his appeal of the $83.3 million award to E. Jean Carroll. If Trump fails to meet the financial qualifications for an appeal, there’s one thing we’ll know for sure: the man who ran for president claiming he was worth more than $10 billion is so financially weak that when an 80-year-old woman grabbed him by the wallet, he couldn’t perform.

Reprinted with permission from DC Report.

E. Jean Carroll Judge Instructs Jurors To Conceal Identity -- Even From Family

E. Jean Carroll Judge Instructs Jurors To Conceal Identity -- Even From Family

With writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation trial against former President Donald Trump now underway, US District Judge Lewis F. Kaplan is taking the security of jurors seriously.

Politico legal reporter Erica Orden tweeted Tuesday that Kaplan instructed his jury that it was to be an "anonymous jury," meaning no one — meaning other jurors, reporters, attorneys and even Judge Kaplan — would know their names. He also suggested members of the jury that they refer to each other using assumed names, and laid out highly detailed instructions for their safe transportation to and from the courtroom each day.

"The jurors will be transported to court each day by gathering at certain meeting spots, from where they will be driven to court and brought in via underground garage, Kaplan says. He also instructed jurors not tell anyone, including family, that they are serving on this case," Orden wrote.

Kaplan's insistence on anonymity and security for jurors may be out of an abundance of caution given the former president's behavior in his New York civil fraud trial. Trump repeatedly attacked Allison Greenfield — a law clerk for Judge Arthur Engoron – and at one point published a link to her personal Instagram account, which led to both Greenfield and Engoron getting "inundated" with death threats from Trump supporters.

The deluge of threats resulted in Engoron imposing a gag order on the ex-president aimed at preventing him from attacking court staff, though Engoron exempted himself and New York Attorney General Letitia James from that gag order.

This week's defamation trial will only be to determine how much Trump will be on the hook to pay Carroll, who is asking for $10 million in damages. During the jury selection process, Kaplan asked prospective jurors whether they understood that Trump was already ruled to have been liable for both sexual abuse and defamation with actual malice, and all agreed.

Orden tweeted that several potential jury members were eventually excused after saying they agreed with Trump's baseless assertions that the 2020 election was unfairly stolen from him, and that he had been treated "unfairly" in previous court proceedings.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Rudy Giuliani

In Court Filing, Giuliani Admits Lying About Georgia Election Workers

Rudy Giuliani has admitted to making false and defamatory statements about Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. The pair are suing him for defamation after Giuliani went on television to repeat false and debunked claims that they had produced “suitcases” of ballots for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

In a nolo contendere filing made on Tuesday evening, attorneys working for Giuliani write that he “does not contest” that he made the defamatory statements. He also admits that he spread and amplified these defamatory statements. However, the attorneys claim that Giuliani is making this admission only to move things along to the next phase of the trial, where he can once again move to dismiss the case on grounds that his false, defamatory statements are still “constitutionally protected.”

But the real reason Giuliani appears to be confessing is that the motion seeks to end any search for documents or statements, by making “further discovery unnecessary.”

Speaking to USA Today, a spokesman for Giuliani insisted that “Giuliani did not acknowledge that the statements were false,” but just wanted to hurry on to the point where he can file another motion to dismiss. However, that statement is completely at odds with the contents of the filing.

What Giuliani is attempting to do here is to not only confess to lying and defamation, but to place a restriction that says this confession to lying and defamation can’t be used in any other litigation. It’s not at all clear this will work.

But the biggest part of the plan shows Giuliani is ceding “any pertinent facts for which discovery from him should be needed,” meaning that U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell should now stop the search for documents, emails, text messages, and other communications between Giuliani and others involved in the scheme to overturn the 2020 election.

It’s highly unlikely that Howell will dismiss the case over Giuliani’s claims that he was just exercising his First Amendment right to free speech. Defamatory statements are just that: defamatory. Neither Freeman nor Moss were public figures, and as ordinary citizens the law affords them the highest protection against statements exactly like those made by Giuliani.

He is also claiming that the two women can't be sure his statements did them any substantial harm. This is also clearly false as following Giuliani’s appearance on One America News Network, the election workers were hit with “an immediate onslaught of violent and racist threats and harassment” and are now unable “to live normal lives.”

The effort to cut off discovery in this case could directly impact the special counsel investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election, as information turned over in the Freeman and Moss lawsuit is being made available to the special counsel's office through a lawsuit filed by former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik.

Marcy Wheeler has an extensive look into how the claims made in Giuliani’s attempts to block discovery in this case tie into other cases he has been involved with, including everything that springs from his false claims about the actions of Joe and Hunter Biden in Ukraine. These are the same well-debunked claims Republicans are now pretending to investigate in a series of House hearings that are really nothing more than an opportunity for them to repeat known lies, and for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to show nude pictures of the president’s son.

We don’t know yet whether Giuliani’s attempt to halt discovery will work, or whether his attempt to limit his admissions to this case are secure. We do know that no matter what his spokesman says, he’s admitting that the claims he made about election fraud in Georgia were a lie.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.