Donald Trump was found liable for the sexual abuse, forcible touching and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, decided a federal jury. Image credit: julieannesmo, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Former US President Donald Trump was found liable for the sexual abuse, forcible touching and defamation of E. Jean Carroll, decided a federal jury on Tuesday.
Carroll, a famed author and magazine columnist, accused the former president of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
She also accused him of defamation following his public denial of the incident.
Carroll did not speak publicly about the experience until the publication of her 2019 memoir, What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal, in which she recounts being sexually assaulted by Trump, and on another occasion, by former CBS executive Les Moonves.
In October 2022, Trump decried Carroll’s allegations as a “complete con job”, “a hoax” and “a lie” to his sizeable audience of supporters on Truth Social.
Carroll said that these public denials instigated a vicious online harassment campaign against her by his followers, which damaged her personal and professional life.
The Manhattan jury reached a verdict which found Trump guilty of sexual assault and defamation, but did not find him guilty of rape.
Carroll was awarded approximately $US5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Due to the nature of the case as a civil trial, Trump will not face criminal consequences as a result of the verdict.
The former US President did not attend the trial, nor did his legal team present defence, predicting that Carroll’s testimony would be insufficient to persuade jurors of his guilt.
The jury heard testimony from two more women, Jessica Leeds and former People magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff, who alleged that Trump had sexually assaulted them in 1979 and 2005 respectively.
Video footage of Trump at the 2022 deposition also showed him mistaking Carroll for his second wife, Marla Maples, in a black-and-white photograph – though he had previously claimed that he could not have raped Carroll because she was “not [his] type.”
Trump took to Truth Social to express his feelings following the trial.
“This verdict is a disgrace — a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time!” Mr Trump wrote.
Carroll, on the other hand, considered the verdict to be a victory “for all women”.
“The old view of the perfect victim was a woman who always screamed. A woman who immediately reported. A woman whose life was supposed to fold up and she’s never supposed to experience happiness again,” said Carroll on morning television, following the trial.
“That was just shut down with this verdict, the death of the perfect victim has happened. Now this verdict is for all women.”
Political commentators now speculate as to how the verdict will impact Trump’s hopes for re-election in 2024, however, most agree that his dedicated supporters are unlikely to be moved by the decision.
