Former President Donald Trump was ordered by a Manhattan jury on Friday to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her in 2019 after she accused him of a decades-old rape, attacks he continued in social media posts, at news conferences and even in the midst of the trial.

Carroll’s lawyers had argued that a large award was necessary to stop Trump from continuing to attack her. The nine-member jury responded by awarding Carroll $65 million in punitive damages, finding that Trump had acted with malice. On one recent day, he made more than 40 derisive posts about Carroll on his Truth Social website.

On Friday, the judge, Lewis Kaplan, called in the jury shortly after 4:30 pm, cautioning, “We will have no outbursts.” The verdict was delivered nine minutes later to utter silence in the courtroom.

Trump had already left for the day when the dollar figures were read aloud. Hearing the numbers, his lawyers slumped in their seats. The jury was dismissed, and Carroll, 80, embraced her lawyers. Minutes later, she walked out of the courthouse arm-in-arm with her legal team, beaming for the cameras.

“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,” Carroll said in a statement, thanking her lawyers effusively.

Trump, who had walked out of the courtroom earlier during the closing argument by Carroll’s lawyer, said in a Truth Social post that the verdict was “absolutely ridiculous”. “Our legal system is out of control, and being used as a political weapon,” he said, pledging to appeal. “They have taken away all First Amendment rights.”

Outside the courthouse, Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, combined complaints about how Kaplan had handled the case with sloganeering, echoing Trump’s claims that he was being ill-treated.