Trump loses bid to delay $83.3 million E. Jean Carroll judgment

A New York choose on Thursday rejected a bid by Donald Trump to delay a $83.3 million civil defamation judgment in favor of author E. Jean Carroll.

The ruling signifies that Trump by Monday should pay Carroll, or publish a bond or property as collateral in opposition to the judgment whereas appealing a jury’s verdict in January that as president he defamed her after she accused him in 2019 of rape.

The judgment is only one of three civil damages awards in opposition to Trump, who owes a complete of $540 million to the New York state lawyer basic and Carroll, whereas on observe to turn into the Republican presidential nominee.

Trump had requested Manhattan federal court docket Choose Lewis Kaplan to pause the newest Carroll case judgment till after he guidelines on post-trial motions.

His lawyer Alina Habba in a submitting Wednesday requested a delay “till three enterprise days after the Courtroom guidelines on his keep movement.”

However Kaplan, in his denial order Thursday, wrote that Trump’s “present state of affairs is a results of his personal dilatory actions.”

“He has had since January 26 to prepare his funds with the information that he may have to bond this judgment, but he waited till 25 days after the jury verdict” to ask for a pause within the judgment, Kaplan wrote.

The choose additionally rejected an argument from Trump’s attorneys that he would undergo “irreparable harm” if he was compelled to publish a bond for the total judgment as a result of he must pay non-recoverable charges.

“The expense of ongoing litigation within the absence of a keep doesn’t represent ‘irreparable harm’ within the related sense of that time period,” the choose wrote.

In a press release blasting Kaplan’s order, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung stated, “This can be a continuation of a very lawless witch hunt.”

“President Trump filed a well timed movement to remain the ridiculous judgment, and plenty of courts, together with the Second Circuit [federal appeals court], acknowledge the significance of short-term administrative stays whereas such motions are thought of,” Cheung stated.

“We look ahead to persevering with to litigate the case and to finish vindication of the reality.”

Zak Sawyer, a spokesman for Carroll’s attorneys, declined to remark.

Trump in one other Manhattan federal civil trial final 12 months was discovered to have sexually abused Carroll in an assault within the mid-Nineties, and defamed her in feedback he made in 2022, practically two years after leaving the White Home.

He later posted $5.6 million in money as collateral whereas he appealed the jury verdict ordering him to pay her $5 million in that case.

Each final 12 months’s trial and the newest trial associated to Carroll’s declare that Trump raped her in a dressing room on the Bergdorf Goodman division retailer in Manhattan after an opportunity assembly there within the Nineties.

Trump denied raping the author, and claimed she had made up her allegation to advertise gross sales of a ebook she was writing, and to hurt him politically.

Trump final month was ordered by a state court docket choose to pay a $454 million judgment in a civil enterprise fraud lawsuit filed by New York Lawyer Normal Letitia James.

He has not but been compelled to pay that quantity or put up collateral to safe the judgment within the fraud case. However that quickly may change if an appeals court docket declines to remain the judgment.