Trump launches defamation appeal with US$91mn bond
Donald Trump on Friday appealed the writer E. Jean Carroll's US$83.3 million verdict in her recent defamation case, which arose from his branding her a liar after she accused him of raping her decades ago. Trump said his appeal to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan will cover "all adverse orders, rulings, decrees, decisions, opinions, memoranda, conclusions, or findings" leading to the January 26 verdict. The former US president also revealed he has lined up a US$91.63 million bond from Federal Insurance for the appeal, reflecting the trial court's usual practice that bonds equal 110 percent of judgments. Trump previously argued he shouldn't have to post any security because Carroll was sufficiently protected. Carroll had objected that this boiled down to Trump saying "trust me." The appeal stemmed from a Manhattan jury's conclusion that Trump had defamed Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, in June 2019 by denying that he raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. Jurors awarded Carroll US$18.3 million of compensatory damages, including US$7.3 million for emotional harm and US$11 million for harm to her reputation. They also awarded her US$65 million of punitive damages. Trump has said he shouldn't owe anything, and alternatively that both sums should be reduced substantially. He still has to post sufficient security for his expected appeal of last month's US$454.2 million verdict in a civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. Trump has offered to post a US$100 million bond in that case, but James said any bond should cover the entire judgment. (Reuters)