President Trump’s lawyers have petitioned the judge presiding over E. Jean Carroll's defamation case against him to substantially decrease the $83.3 million jury award or authorize a new trial.
Trump contends that Judge Lewis Kaplan erroneously restricted his ability to defend himself during his brief testimony, warranting a new trial.
In documents submitted to the court on Tuesday, Trump's legal team asserted that Kaplan made mistakes by preventing Trump from testifying about “his own state of mind” and by providing an “erroneous jury instruction on the definition of common-law malice.” Trump's attorneys argued that the jury should have been instructed that they needed to determine whether it was Trump's “sole, exclusive desire to harm” Carroll.
Prior to the trial, Kaplan limited Trump's testimony, stating that he couldn't refute raping Carroll or deny making defamatory statements, following a judgment established by a different jury in 2023. The judge required the attorneys to outline the questions Trump would face and his anticipated responses.
Trump requested 30 days after the ruling on post-trial briefs. Carroll contested the request, citing Trump's failure to provide evidence of his ability to make the payment. The judge is currently evaluating the request.
Trump's lawyers reiterated the trial arguments, contending that Carroll failed to link Trump's statements about her to the negative and harassing messages she received after disclosing her sexual assault allegations against Trump in the mid-1990s. The judge had previously dismissed this argument.
Trump's legal team additionally contended that the jury's award exceeded reasonable limits compared to other verdicts and should be diminished. They asserted that the $65 million in punitive damages was “grossly excessive” and proposed reducing it to a 1-to-1 ratio with compensatory damages.
