Jurors needed less than three hours to reach a verdict on Friday following a five-day trial. The sum that the former US president was ordered to pay far exceeded the minimum $US10 million that Carroll had sought.
Carroll's case has become an issue in Trump's campaign to retake the White House in the November US election. Trump is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020.
Trump attended most of the trial, but was not in the courtroom to hear the verdict. He said in a social media post that he will appeal.
Carroll, 80, did not answer reporters' questions as she left the courthouse, with her arms around two of her lawyers. Her representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The former Elle magazine advice columnist 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.
Carroll testified that Trump's denials "shattered" her reputation as a respected journalist who told the truth.
The seven-man, two-woman jury, whose members were kept anonymous, awarded Carroll $US18.3 million in compensatory damages, including $US11 million for harm to her reputation. The jurors also awarded $US65 million in punitive damages, which Carroll said were needed to stop Trump from continuing to defame her.
Trump, 77, maintained that he had never heard of Carroll, and that she made up her story to boost sales of her memoir.
With AAP.
