A federal judge has rejected former President Trump’s request for a new trial after a New York jury ordered Trump to pay $5 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll for sexually abusing her at a department store in the 1990s and defaming her. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday rejected claims by Trump’s lawyers that the verdict was a “seriously erroneous result” and “a miscarriage of justice.” Kaplan wrote, “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was 'raped' within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.' Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”