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  5. Jury finds Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and awards her $5 million

Jury finds Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and awards her $5 million

Jacob Shamsian,Ashley Collman,Laura Italiano   

Jury finds Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and awards her $5 million
  • A Manhattan jury found Donald Trump liable for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll.
  • Carroll's lawsuit stemmed from her allegation that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s.

A jury has unanimously found former President Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing longtime Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s, and that he defamed her by denying it.

After two weeks of trial testimony and arguments, jurors arrived at their verdict after about 2 1/2 hours of deliberating. The jury has awarded Carroll $5 million total in damages.

The jury didn't find that Trump raped Carroll, which was a verdict it could have returned.

In court, Carroll hung her head when the jury returned a not-liable verdict for rape, but lifted it again when they found that Trump was liable for sexually abusing her in the Bergdorf Goodman dressing room.

The biggest chunk of the awarded damages is $2 million for the sexual abuse finding. Then, $1.7 million was awarded for reputational damage.

Carroll left court without speaking to reporters. In an emailed statement later Tuesday afternoon, she said the verdict was a victory for all women whose accusations of abuse were not believed.

"I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back," Carroll said. "Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed."

Trump responded to the verdict in a Truth Social post, where he continued to deny knowing Carroll.

"I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS," he wrote. "THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE - A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!"

Before discharging the jury, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the case, thanked the jurors for their duty. The jurors were sequestered and anonymous, and the judge advised them against making their identities public "not now, and not for a long time."

In closing arguments Monday, Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan (who is unrelated to the judge) urged jurors to believe the writer's emotional testimony and walked them through how other witnesses corroborated elements of her story.

"Those were the tears of a woman laying out the most private, the most painful moment of her life," Kaplan said.

Joe Tacopina, an attorney representing Trump — who didn't show up at all during the trial in Manhattan federal court — argued Carroll's allegations were lies, and that her friends who testified plotted to hurt Trump because they hated him politically. He told jurors that "it was OK to hate Donald Trump," but to set their feelings aside to render a verdict.

"They're trying to take parts of Donald Trump you dislike and stretch it over Ms. Carroll's story," Tacopina said.

Following the verdict, Kaplan said in a statement that the verdict demonstrated that "no one is above the law, not even a former President of the United States."

"For far too long, survivors of sexual assault faced a wall of doubt and intimidation," Kaplan said. "We hope and believe today's verdict will be an important step in tearing that wall down. E. Jean Carroll has never wavered in her strength, courage, and determination to seek justice. Donald Trump, on the other hand, failed to even show up in court."

Carroll testified in the trial that Trump raped her in the spring of 1996 in the dressing room of the lingerie section of the Bergdorf Goodman department store, located a block away from Trump Tower.

She was exiting the store one Thursday night, she said, when Trump recognized her as "that advice lady" and asked for her help buying a gift for another woman. At the time, Carroll had a widely known advice column in Elle magazine, as well as a TV show where she dispensed life advice.

Carroll recognized Trump as "that real estate tycoon" and made their way up to the lingerie section on the sixth floor, where Carroll jokingly suggested he try on a lacy bodysuit left on a counter, she testified. The two made their way to a dressing room, where Carroll says Trump pushed her against the wall, pinned her down, inserted his fingers into her vagina, and then put his penis inside her. After a few moments' struggle, Carroll broke free and left the store, she said.

Carroll said she kept the incident a secret, telling only two friends — Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin — soon afterward. She was worried, she testified, that Trump would crush her and ruin her life with a phalanx of lawyers if she went public at the time. In 2019, with her book "What Do We Need Men For?" and an excerpt published in New York magazine, Carroll finally went public with her claims against Trump.

Trump's lawyers claimed the allegations were a cooked-up plot

Trump denied Carroll's allegations, called her "not my type," and said she was a liar who made up the story to sell her book, prompting Carroll to file a defamation lawsuit against him in November 2019. The lawsuit has been stuck in limbo over legal questions about whether Trump insulted Carroll as part of his presidential duties, which would render him immune to defamation claims.

But in October 2022, Trump insulted Carroll again. A month later, Carroll brought another defamation lawsuit, as well as battery claims that were permitted by the Adult Survivors Act — a New York law passed in the wake of the #MeToo movement that allowed people to bring sexual assault claims when they would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations. Jurors rendered a verdict on that second case on Tuesday after hearing testimony from Carroll, Martin, Birnbach, and other witnesses who bolstered Carroll's account.

In closing arguments, Tacopina pointed to emails, text messages, and interviews where Martin and Birnbach professed their extreme hatred for Trump. He also pointed to an oblique reference where Martin said she would "scheme" with Carroll and Birnbach, arguing the group plotted to accuse Trump of rape to hurt him politically.

Carroll's lawyers, for their part, said their willingness to bring the case to court only made them more believable. Martin and Birnbach, Carroll's lawyer Michael Ferrara said, had careers as journalists and spent decades building up trust.

"They're not going to throw away their reputations and livelihoods for some harebrained scheme to take down Donald Trump," Ferrara told jurors Monday.

The lawyers said the messages Trump's attorneys pointed to were cherrypicked. Taken in their original context, they clearly don't describe a plot to take down Trump, they said.

Apart from live witness testimony, jurors heard 48 minutes of deposition video from Trump, where he denied the rape. Trump's decision not to show up in court at all — he held a rally in New Hampshire and golfed in Ireland — was featured prominently in closing arguments from Carroll's team. Carroll's allegations, Ferrara said, weren't a "he-said-she-said" situation.

"There wasn't even a 'he said,' because Donald Trump never even looked you in the eye and said she was a liar," Ferrara said.

Carroll's lawyers brought two other women who accused Trump of sexual assault — Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff — who testified that Trump also suddenly sexually assaulted them in semi-public places. It was a pattern for Trump, they argued. He said as much himself in the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape, where Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitalia and which was shown several times at the trial.

"You heard from Donald Trump himself — this is just how he treats women," Ferrara said.



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