Judge Lewis Kaplan had just a few short words to share with the jury moments after they issued a whopping $83.3 million verdict against Donald Trump in the defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
“My advice to you is that you never disclose that you were on this jury,” Kaplan said.
That foreboding warning—which sounds more like something you’d expect to hear in a trial against a mob boss rather than a former president—is just one of many extraordinary measures that Kaplan has taken to keep his jury safe. Prior to the trial’s start, Kaplan also decided to keep the jury partially sequestered and fully anonymous, instructing them not to use their real names even with one another.
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