A federal judge has ruled that former president Donald Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about E. Jean Carroll in 2019 after the writer accused him of raping her decades earlier.

Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Wednesday that the upcoming trial for Carroll's civil lawsuit against the former president will only deal with only determine how much Trump owes her in monetary damages. The trial is set to begin on January 15, 2024, and deals with comments Trump made as president in 2019 where he called the proceedings a “political witch hunt" and accused Carroll of making up the accusations to sell a book.

The same court during a separate trial in May found that Trump had sexually abused Carroll in a New York department store in the 1990s, and that he had defamed her in fall of 2022 when denying her allegations and accusing her of lying. While Trump was not convicted of rape, he was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages.

“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen,” Carroll testified during the trial. “He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try and get my life back.”

Carroll filed the lawsuit last November under the "New York State Adult Survivors Act," a bill which allowed a window for sexual assault allegations like Carroll's to be brought to civil court despite expired statutes of limitation.

When the verdict in the first case was handed down, Carroll said at a press conference that she was "overwhelmed with joy and happiness and delight for the women in this country."

“Here’s the thing. Here’s the astonishing thing about his win yesterday,” she continued. “Of all the cases that this man faces, all the legal quagmires ... all the prosecutors, all the special counsel, all the investigators, what happened yesterday is one five-foot little blonde wily female attorney ... and one 79-year-old advice columnist beat Donald Trump in court.”