Donald Trump was ordered by a federal jury to pay a staggering additional $83.3 million (£65 million) in damages to fashion writer E Jean Carroll.
Carrol, who smiled as the verdict was read, accused the former US president of destroying her reputation as a trustworthy journalist by denying he raped her nearly three decades ago.
The 80-year-old sued Trump in November 2019 over his denials five months earlier that he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Trump, 77, claimed that he had never heard of Carroll, and that she made up her story to boost sales of her memoir.
His lawyers said Carroll was hungry for fame and enjoyed the attention from supporters for speaking out against her nemesis.
Another jury last May ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million (£3.9 million) over a similar October 2022 denial, finding that he had defamed and sexually abused Carroll. Trump is appealing that decision.
Earlier, Trump stormed out of a courtroom during the closing arguments of his defamation damages trial.
The former president got up and walked out on Friday, while Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer representing Carroll urged a jury to award at least $24 million (just under £19 million) in damages.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan interrupted the statement to say: “The record will reflect that Mr Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom.”
Carroll testified that Trump's comments caused her to be subjected to continuous attacks, including death threats, that have yet to abate.
Trump accused Carroll of making up the encounter to boost book sales.
His lawyers have argued that Carroll doesn't deserve any money, and actually sought fame and adulation by coming forward.
The jury in this new trial has been told that it is there for a limited purpose and jurors must accept the verdict reached last year.
The current jury will only determine whether additional damages are owed for statements Trump made in June 2019 while he was president, calling Ms Carroll a liar The claims had been delayed for years by court appeals.
On Friday, Ms Kaplan told jurors in federal court in Manhattan that they should punish the former US president for persistently lying about her client.
She said: "We all have to follow the law. Donald Trump, however, acts as if these rules and laws just don't apply to him.
"This trial is about getting him to stop, once and for all.”
Once a lawyer for Trump has made their closing arguments, jurors are expected to begin deliberations later on Friday – to decide whether she is entitled to more than the $5 million (£3.9 million) she was awarded in a separate trial last year.
The final remarks from the lawyers come a day after Trump managed to sneak past a federal judge’s rules severely limiting what he could say during his turn on the witness stand, which wound up lasting just three minutes.
He left fuming that he hadn’t been given an opportunity to refute Ms Carroll’s sexual abuse accusations.
“She said something that I considered to be a false accusation,” Trump said, later adding: “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency.”
The jury was told by the judge to disregard both remarks.
