Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Sexually explicit AI-generated images of Taylor Swift cause uproar, two JP Morgan execs assume more power at the bank, and E. Jean Carroll wins against Donald Trump for the second time. Have a mindful Monday.
– Take two. On Friday, a jury came to a verdict: Former President Donald Trump owed writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her and “ruining her credibility as an advice columnist” after she said he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
The verdict, arriving as Trump gains momentum in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, was a long-awaited victory. Carroll shared her story of being assaulted by Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in a memoir and 2019 article for New York magazine. In 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in a suit Carroll brought under the Adult Survivors Act, which allowed survivors to sue in situations where the statute of limitations had expired. She was awarded $5 million.
That was an important moment—but this verdict is capturing even more attention. Since Trump left office, different legal cases have gone after the Trump Organization’s finances and the former president himself. There are the fraud cases, the election subversion, the hush money, the improper handling of classified documents, and the ballot challenges. Many of those suits, brought by district attorneys and federal authorities, are still in progress.
For now, it’s the underdog Carroll who has hit Trump where it hurts, as has her attorney Robbie Kaplan—now the only lawyer to have won twice against the former president.
E. Jean Carroll departs a Manhattan federal court at the conclusion of her defamation suit against Donald Trump on January 26, 2024 in New York City. A New York jury has awarded Carroll $83.3 million in her civil trial against Trump. Spencer Platt/Getty Images After Carroll wrote her wrenching piece about Trump’s assault, he insulted her in every way possible. He implied the now 80-year-old writer was too old and too unattractive for him to be interested in assaulting. (Trump is 77.) He called her a liar. During the trial, an expert witness testified that Trump’s statements were likely heard by 85 million people, 21 million of whom would be likely to believe them. Trump stormed out of court during the trial’s closing arguments, as Kaplan told the jury he was a liar who thinks “the rules don’t apply to him.”
Carroll sued for $10 million in compensatory damages plus unspecified punitive damages; she was awarded $65 million in punitive damages plus $11 million for reputational damage and another $7.3 million.
Trump is likely to appeal, so it may be a while before Carroll sees any of this money. But she says she’s “not going to waste a cent of this.” Whatever happens with the payout, she’s already made a difference. While Trump continues to sail through the GOP primaries, seeming to avoid accountability at every turn, Carroll and Kaplan are among the first to bring him to justice.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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