A jury has found former President Donald Trump liable for assault and defamation in the E. Jean Carroll case.
Carroll, who filed the lawsuit in November, alleged that Trump defamed her in 2022 Social publication of the truth calling her accusations “a farce and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when she denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.
The former Elle magazine columnist added a battery charge under a recently passed New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations. Trump has denied all allegations that he violated Carroll or defamed her.
The jury awarded Carroll a total of $5 million in the lawsuit. Jurors found that Trump did not rape Carroll, but sexually abused her, and awarded damages of $2 million in compensatory damages and $20,000 in punitive damages for battery.
The jury awarded $1 million in damages, $1.7 million in reputational damages and $280,000 in punitive damages for defamation.
The jury reached its verdict after just under three hours of deliberations.
Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by about two dozen women. Carroll’s battery plea was the first to go before a jury.
E. Jean Carroll leaves Manhattan Federal Court following the verdict in the civil rape case against former President Donald Trump in New York on May 9, 2023.
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
After the verdict, Trump called it a disgrace.
“I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS,” she posted on her Truth Social platform. “THIS VERDICT IS A DISAGREEMENT, A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!
Carroll was seated between two of her attorneys, Roberta Kaplan and Shawn Crowley, when the verdict was read. At one point, Crowley put his arm around Carroll, who grabbed Kaplan’s hand.
Defense attorney Joe Tacopina was seen conversing with co-counsel Chad Siegel and Perry Brandt.
Before the deliberations began, Trump posted on social media: “Awaiting a grand jury decision on a trumped-up charge where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading everyone else in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend -me, even if it’s so hard. reporters are asking me questions about this case. Meanwhile, the other side has a book falsely accusing me of rape and is working with the press. So I won’t talk until after the trial , but I will appeal the unconstitutional silence of me, as a candidate, no matter the result.”
Earlier in the trial, the judge had admonished the defense for Trump’s social media posts about Carroll and his allegations. The judge did not address this most recent publication, but previously indicated that if Trump wanted to talk about the case he would have to testify under oath, which Trump refused to do.
In a civil case, jurors may draw an adverse inference when a defendant chooses not to testify.
“He chose not to be here. He never looked you in the eye and denied raping Ms. Carroll. He never did,” Carroll’s attorney, Michael Ferrara, told jurors during the trial.
Carroll testified during the trial that he ran into Trump near the entrance of Bergdorf Goodman and asked him to help him buy underwear as a gift. The two were laughing and joking, she said, when he took her into a dressing room, closed the door, pushed her against a wall and sexually assaulted her.
She told the jury she first met Trump in 1987, but struggled to pinpoint the date she alleges he assaulted her, which she estimated was around 1996.
“And why isn’t there a date for such a significant event in someone’s life?” defense attorney Joe Tacopina replied. “It’s not a coincidence. Without a date, or month, or year, you can’t present an alibi.”
Carroll’s lawyers seized on Trump’s statement last year when he was shown a photograph from the 1980s of Carroll, her then-husband John Johnson, Trump and his then-wife Ivana Trump, and it momentarily confused Carroll with his second wife, Marla Maples. .
“That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my wife,” Trump said of Carroll, according to the statement.
“The truth is that E. Jean Carroll, a former entertainer and Mrs. Indiana, was exactly Donald Trump’s type,” Carroll’s lawyers argued in court.
Carroll’s lawyers juxtaposed Trump’s misidentification with his comments on the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he is heard saying of women that “I just started kissing them … or I just hope” and that when you’re a star you can “take them by the p—-“.
“What is Donald Trump doing here?” Carroll’s attorney said. “He’s telling you in his own words how he treats women. It’s his modus operandi.”
The jury also heard from two other women who claimed they were sexually assaulted by Trump, in what Carroll’s lawyers said showed a pattern of behavior by Trump. Former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff testified that she was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in late 2005 when Trump asked to be shown a room at the estate, then closed the door behind her. of her, he pushed her against the wall and started kissing her. . She told the jury that she tried to push him away and that the alleged encounter ended when a butler entered the room.
Jessica Leeds testified that she was sitting next to Trump in the first class section of a flight to New York in 1979, “when suddenly Trump decided to kiss me and grope me.” She said she broke free when Trump started reaching up her skirt and “went back” into the trainer’s section.
Trump, who chose not to testify in his own defense, has previously denied the allegations by both women, as well as Carroll.
The defense did not call any witnesses, but Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told the jury that Carroll’s claim was “an unbelievable work of fiction” and that if the alleged attacker was someone other than Donald Trump, ” we’re not here. Not in this story.” “
“What they want is for you to hate him enough to ignore the facts,” the lawyer said.
“There is no objective evidence to support his claim, including a police report,” Tacopina told the jury. “She never went to the police, because it didn’t happen.”
Tacopina said Carroll “falsely alleged that he raped her,” and that’s why Trump publicly attacked her.
Tacopina said there was no reason for Trump to appear because Carroll’s story was “completely made up” and lacked credibility because he could not identify when the alleged violation occurred.
“And if Donald Trump testified, what could I have asked him?” Tacopina said. “Where were you on an unknown date 27 or 28 years ago?”
Carroll’s lawsuit was her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.
She previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim saying to the hill that Carroll was “absolutely lying,” saying, “I’ll say this very respectfully: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, okay?” That defamation lawsuit has been mired in a back-and-forth over whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those statements.
If Trump is found to have acted as a government employee, the U.S. government would be substituted as a defendant in that lawsuit, meaning the case would go away since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
This month’s trial comes as Trump seeks a third term at the White House, while facing numerous legal challenges related to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, his handling of classified material after leaving the White House and possible attempts to interfere in the 2020 Georgia vote. . Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said last week that she would decide whether to file criminal charges against Trump or his allies this summer.
ABC News’ Olivia Rubin contributed to this report.
