Former President Donald Trump has put $5.5 million into a federal court-controlled trust account to cover the judgment in the E. Jean Carroll sex assault case as he pursues an appeal.
Defense lawyer Joe Tacopina told the judge in the case Friday that Trump had forked over the standard amount, equivalent to 111% of the $5 million a Manhattan Federal Court jury ordered him to pay for sexually assaulting the writer in a department store dressing room three decades ago.
The payment represents Trump’s first step toward compensating Carroll after a the jury that heard the trial resulting from Carroll’s lawsuit found the former president liable for sexual assault and defamation.
Carroll will not be able to access the funds while Trump seeks to appeal the verdict.
Manhattan Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the case, still needs to accept the proposal made by Trump through Tacopina.
Carroll has a second claim pending against Trump stemming from statements he made about her while serving in the White House.
She was permitted to amend that suit to ask for more damages after Trump repeated defamatory claims about her on national television just days after the jury found him liable.
Carroll accused Trump of attacking her in a changing room inside Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in the mid-1990s. The case was the first filed under the Adult Survivors Act, historic legislation lifting the statute of limitations to bring sex assault claims for one year.
During an emotional three days of testimony, the former advice columnist told the jury Trump recognized her as they passed each other in the luxury department store’s revolving doors and asked her to help him pick out a present for a female friend.
He wound up attacking her in a dressing room, she told the jury.
The defamation part of the case stemmed from Trump repeatedly calling Carroll a liar.
Trump didn’t take the stand in the high-stakes courtroom battle.
Tacopina sought to poke holes in Carroll’s claims, notably by pointing out that she never screamed for help.
But the jury, which included a man who admitted being an avid fan of a pro-Trump podcast, took just a few hours to find Trump liable.
Source: YahooNews/Daily News
#Donald Trump. #E.Jean Carroll #
