Judge refuses to grant Trump relief from the $83.3 million defamation judgment

The judge in charge of a trial in New York did not let Donald Trump off the hook for paying $83. 3 million to a woman who says he raped her.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said in a letter to Trump’s lawyer that he won’t change the deadlines for getting a bond to make sure the 80-year-old writer E. Jean Carroll may receive the reward if the decision is not overturned on appeal.

The judge said that the Republican front-runner for president didn’t act quickly enough to respond to the court decision in a defamation case. This caused financial harm to him. The case was about statements Trump made about Carroll while he was president in 2019, after she wrote about her claims against him in a book.

At that time, Trump said she was lying about him raping her in a store in 1996. In May, a jury decided that Trump must pay Carroll $5 million because they found that he sexually abused her, but did not rape her according to New York state law. Trump was not at the trial. It also found that he said mean things about her in October 2022.

Trump went to the trial in January and talked for a short time. But the judge didn’t let him say much. The judge said the jury had to agree with the decision from May. They only had to decide how much money Carroll should get for what Trump said in 2019. In the statements, Trump said he didn’t know Carroll and said she was making up lies to sell books and hurt him politically.

Trump’s lawyers are saying that they don’t agree with the decision that includes a $65 million fine. They think there is a good chance that it will be lowered or canceled in the future.

In his decision on Thursday, Kaplan pointed out that Trump’s lawyers waited 25 days to ask for more time to post a bond. The decision will be official on Monday.

The text is too short to be simplified. Kaplan wrote that Trump’s current situation is caused by his own delaying actions.

The judge said that Trump’s lawyers want to wait before paying the money the jury said Trump owed until after the judge decides if they have to pay it. They think getting ready to pay could cost a lot and cause big problems.

Kaplan said that the cost of lawsuits doesn’t mean it’s something that can’t be fixed.

The judge said that Trump did not provide any information about how much it would cost him to post a bond, or what options he had to secure payment of the judgement.

Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, did not respond right away.

Since January, a judge in New York ordered Trump and his companies to pay $355 million in penalties for lying about how much money they had to banks and others. He has to pay the state almost $454 million because of interest.