![Jury finds Donald Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, awards her $5M in total damages](https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/107238423-16836599781683659976-29381089083-1080pnbcnews.jpg?v=1683660342&w=750&h=422&vtcrop=y)
A New York federal jury found former President Donald Trump liable Tuesday for sexually assaulting and groping writer E. Jean Carroll at a department store in the 1990s, and for defamation. to him last fall when he rejected his claim.
The jury of six men and three women ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The verdict in the civil trial came after less than three hours of deliberation in the US District Court in lower Manhattan.
The jury notably did not find Trump liable for rape, as Carroll said.
“I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. This verdict is a disgrace,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social.
A spokesperson for his 2024 Republican presidential campaign said, “This case will be appealed, and ultimately we will prevail.”
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rides a golf cart at the Trump International Golf Links course, in Doonbeg, Ireland May 4, 2023.
Damien Storan | Reuters
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said, “We are very happy,” as she left the courthouse with her client. Carroll did not speak to reporters.
The ruling is the latest legal blow against Trump, who is leading in early polls for the 2024 GOP nomination. In late March he was indicted by a Manhattan state Supreme Court grand jury on nearly three dozen counts of falsifying business records in connection with a 2016 hush-hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump also faces pending federal criminal investigations related to his efforts to reverse his loss in the 2020 presidential election, and his failure to turn over government documents when he left the White House in early 2021. He also faces possible indictment by a Georgia grand jury for his attempt to bring officials there to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in that state.
E. Jean Carroll appears in Manhattan Federal Court following a verdict in civil rape charges against former US President Donald Trump, in New York City, May 9, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Carroll, 79, claimed in her lawsuit that Trump raped her in a dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman store in the mid-1990s.
Trump cannot be prosecuted for the alleged rape because the statute of limitations for such a crime has long passed.
But Carroll sued her with a civil battery claim under a New York state law enacted in late 2022 that opened a one-year grace period for lawsuits alleging sexual assaults. -attacks that would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations.
Carroll also claimed that Trump defamed her last fall when she said she made up her rape account.
Trump, 76, called the allegations “a complete con job,” and said it was not his “type.”
Despite that claim, Trump mistook Carroll for his second wife Marla Maples in a photo showing him and Carroll together in the 1980s.
Former Elle magazine advise columnist E. Jean Carroll looks on as former US president Donald Trump’s video deposition in court during a civil trial in which Carroll accuses the former US president in a lawsuit civilly raping her in a department store dressing room halfway through. -1990s, and of defamation, in New York, US, May 4, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Trump did not testify during the trial.
But portions of a video of her deposition taken last fall by Carroll’s attorney were played for jurors during the trial, and during closing arguments Monday.
That deposition included Trump being questioned about his 2005 comments during a taping for the entertainment television show “Access Hollywood,” in which he boasted: “I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, like a magnet.”
“Just a kiss. I’m not even waiting,” Trump said on that tape. “And when you’re a star, they let you. You can do anything,” he said, including “grab ’em by the p—-.”
Trump told Carroll’s attorney during the deposition that those comments were “locker room talk.”
But he also said it was “historically … true with stars” that they could take women without their consent.
“If you look over the last million years, I think it’s more true,” Trump testified in his deposition. “Not always, but mostly true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”
Carroll took the witness stand.
“I’m here because of Trump I was raped,” he testified.
In her testimony, Carroll said she met Trump by chance at Bergdorf Goodman, where she recognized him as an advice columnist. She testified that when they got to the lingerie department of the store he went into a dressing room, where he pushed her against a wall and sexually assaulted her.
Two of Carroll’s friends, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Marin, testified that she told them immediately after the alleged incident that Trump had raped her.
Two other women testified that Trump kissed and groped them without their consent in incidents that occurred years apart.
A spokesperson for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign said of the jury’s verdict, “The Democratic Party’s never-ending witch-hunt for President Trump has hit a new low today.”
“In jurisdictions fully controlled by the Democratic Party, our nation’s justice system has now been compromised by extremist left-wing politics,” the spokesman said in a statement. “Make no mistake, this entire bogus case is a political effort targeting President Trump because he is now an overwhelming front-runner to be re-elected President of the United States.”
Read: Trump jury verdict form
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