Trump ordered to pay E Jean Carroll $83m for defamation

A jury has determined that Donald Trump must pay E Jean Carroll more than $83m (£65m) in damages for his defamatory statements about the former Elle magazine writer, marking the year’s first federal court verdict against the former president as he campaigns for his return to the White House.

The nine-member jury awarded Ms Carroll $65m in punitive damages in addition to more than $18m in compensatory damages after he was previously found liable for sexual abuse and then smeared her sexual assault allegations as a lie, which fuelled abusive messages and death threats against her.

A verdict was delivered on Friday after roughly three hours of deliberation following a contentious two-week civil trial in a federal courtroom in Manhattan, where Mr Trump’s attorneys aggressively argued against Ms Carroll’s case while the former president repeatedly attacked and potentially defamed her in press conferences and dozens of posts on his Truth Social.

US district judge Lewis Kaplan barred Mr Trump and his attorneys from disputing the facts of the case: that he sexually abused her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and defamed her in statements denying he assaulted her.

Those facts stem from a trial last year when a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a verdict that awarded Ms Carroll $5m.

But even in the moments after that verdict was delivered, Mr Trump has not stopped repeating potentially defamatory statements against her.

E Jean Carroll and her legal team leave court after a jury awarded her $83m in defamation damages in the case she brought against Donald Trump

As the verdict was being read on Friday, Ms Carroll held the hand of her attorney Shawn Crowley. When the damages were being read aloud,