Last week's fish

You may be aware that a federal jury in Manhattan last week took all of less than three hours to award writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3M in damages (of which $65M was punitive) in her defamation suit against the Kleptocrat.

A couple of things—the award in her previous lawsuit (for sexual assault and defamation) was $5M, of which $300K was punitive. That jury, in May 2023, found that Cadet Bonespurs did assault Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room in the 90s and then he defamed her by calling her a liar. In that trial, the primary attorney for the defendant was Joseph Tacopina, an experienced litigator, who was crass and pretty bolshie on behalf of his client. But he did not piss off the judge and jury by disrespecting them and he kept Bonespurs out of the courtroom because he understood that his client’s worst enemy was the client’s inability to STFU.

This time around, the Kleptocrat fired Joey Tacos just before the trial opened and went with Alina Habba, whose pre-Klepto experience was largely limited to representing a parking lot owned by her husband. (Her experience with Bonespurs has been less than stellar: she and her client were sanctioned a year ago to the tune of nearly $1M for filing a frivolous RICO lawsuit against Hillary Clinton, James Comey and half of Washington, D.C.) It showed in her performance throughout the trial—the woman doesn’t have the most elementary understanding of even how to enter evidence into the record. The kind of thing you could pick up from watching reruns of Perry Mason episodes on TBS. This was in addition to Bonespurs’ antics in the courtroom—muttering audibly his objections to various things, shaking his head, even swanning out of the courtroom during plaintiff’s counsel’s closing argument. Every orange pore oozed contempt for the judge, the jury, the process and even the notion of justice. Evidently juries notice this kind of thing.

(Also, I’m guessing it was very uncomfortable having to sit on that wooden chair in a full diaper and girdle.)

So the Find Out part of this life experience cost him $83.3. Habba swore on Friday they’ll appeal the outrageous judgment (although there appear to be no legal grounds for an appeal; Judge Lewis Kaplan was careful to ensure that). "We are just getting started," she said; actually, she was just getting finished. If he carries through, he’ll have to post a bond of about $92M with the court (award plus interest) and that will have to be either his money or through a bonding company (if he can find one that will take the risk of fronting a notorious no-pay guy), which would also cost him fees in addition to the $92M.

Either way, Habba found out Tuesday what every human on the face of the planet could have predicted: the Kleptocrat is dumping her for a yet-to-be-named legal draft pick. She found out via a post on his lame-ass social network:

Now we see if there are any law firms willing to take him on.

And if there are any non-spousal parking lots willing to take her on.