Sexual assault: US court orders Trump to pay $83.3 mn to columnist

New York: In the case of sexual assault against former US president Donald Trump, the jury awarded complainant to E. Jean Carroll USD 83.3 million. The case was that Trump assaulted the longtime advice columnist at a Manhattan department store, the Associated Press reported.

Trump will have to pay Carroll $88.3 million after she was awarded USD 5 million in a defamation verdict last year. However, the Republican protested, saying that he would appeal.

Carroll, 80, clutched her lawyers' hands and smiled as the seven-man, two-woman jury delivered its verdict. Minutes later, she shared a weepy three-way hug with her attorneys.

She declined to comment as she left the Manhattan federal courthouse but issued a statement later through a publicist, saying: "This is a great victory for every woman who stands up when she's been knocked down and a huge defeat for every bully who has tried to keep a woman down." Trump had attended the trial earlier in the day but stormed out of the courtroom during closing arguments read by Carroll's attorney. He returned for his own attorney's closing argument and for a portion of the deliberations but left the courthouse a half hour before the verdict was read.

"Absolutely ridiculous!" he said in a statement shortly afterwards. "Our Legal System is out of control and being used as a Political Weapon." It was the second time in nine months that a civil jury returned a verdict related to Carroll's claim that a flirtatious, chance encounter with Trump in 1996 at Bergdorf Goodman's Fifth Avenue store ended violently. She said Trump slammed her against a dressing room wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her.