Donald Trump just isn't doing well in the courts lately. This time, a federal judge in New York denied the twice-indicted former President's request for a new trial in the defamation and battery case brought by author E. Jean Carroll that resulted in $5 million in damages. And that's bad for Trump since he keeps defaming Carroll.
ABC News reports:
Trump had sought a new trial after a New York jury in May found him liable for sexually assaulting the former Elle magazine columnist in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s, then defaming her in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations "a Hoax and a lie."
Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the request, saying, "The jury in this case did not reach 'a seriously erroneous result.'"
"Its verdict is not 'a miscarriage of justice,'" the Judge said.
"Now that the court has denied Trump's motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E. Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded her," Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement.
Imagine arguing that Trump only sexually abused a woman but never raped her.
"The Court should order a new trial on damages or grant remittitur because contrary to Plaintiff's claim of rape, the Jury found that she was not raped but was sexually abused by Defendant during the 1995/1996 Bergdorf Goodman incident," Trump's attorneys argued in their bid for a new trial.
"Such abuse could have included groping of Plaintiffs breasts through clothing or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape," Trump's attorneys said. "Therefore, an award of $2 million for such conduct, which admittedly did not cause any diagnosed mental injury to Plaintiff, is grossly excessive under the applicable case law."
The Judge disagrees.
Via the Associated Press:
The Judge said the section requires vaginal penetration by a penis while forcible penetration without consent of the vagina or other bodily orifices by fingers or anything else is labeled "sexual abuse" rather than "rape."
He said the definition of rape was "far narrower" than how rape is defined in common modern parlance, in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes and elsewhere.
The Judge said the verdict did not mean that Carroll "failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.' Indeed ... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that."
The GOP frontrunner is a rapist.
