A federal jury found former President Donald Trump liable Tuesday in a civil case for sexual abuse and battery of E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and said he should pay her $5 million in total damages, including for battery with defamation, a verdict that could further complicate the former president’s election bid in 2024.
The jury, which deliberated fewer than three hours, also found Trump liable for defamation. Jurors opted not to find Trump liable for rape but rather sexual abuse.
Trump is likely to appeal the verdict.
Carroll, a professional writer, had sued Trump for defamation, saying he lied about a 1996 sexual assault in a New York City department store and disparaged her character in doing so.
Trump, who has denied Carroll’s claims, said on his Truth Social website early in the day that the trial involved a “False Accusation” and he would “not speak until after the trial.”
Jury instructions
This is a civil case, not a criminal one. The jury was not asked to find Trump “guilty” or “not guilty,” but whether he was liable for an attack on Carroll. They had several alternative verdicts to consider.
In written instructions, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan asked jurors to decide whether the “preponderance of the evidence” shows that Trump “raped,” “sexually abused,” or “forcibly touched” Carroll. It chose that middle option.
The jury was also asked to determine if Trump’s conduct was “willfully or wantonly negligent, reckless, or done with a conscious disregard of the rights of Ms. Carroll.” It said yes.
The instruction sheet also asked if Trump’s criticisms of Carroll in social media posts were “defamatory,” “false,” or made “with actual malice.”
Final arguments
The jurors began their deliberations a day after attorneys for Carroll and Trump made their final arguments.
Carroll’s attorneys argued that Trump has a history of pouncing on women and stressed that he refused to appear at the two-week trial to defend himself.
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Trump’s attorneys, meanwhile, argued that Carroll made up her story for financial gain and to attack the ex-president politically.
During the course of the trial, Carroll testified for three days about her encounter with Trump at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1996. Carroll said she and the prominent real estate mogul chatted and flirted amiably before things turned violent, and he attacked her in a store dressing room.
Carroll said she stayed silent about the incident for years because she feared retribution from Trump and his powerful allies; she eventually decided to write about Trump in a 2019 memoir.
To buttress her testimony, two friends of Carroll testified that she told them about Trump’s attack shortly after it happened. An expert witness testified that Trump’s attacks on Carroll on social media and in interviews caused up to $2.7 million in damages to her reputation.
Access Hollywood
In closing arguments, Carroll’s attorneys stressed Trump’s questionable behavior toward women in general. They cited the infamous “Access Hollywood’ tape that surfaced during the 2016 election in which Trump said that his status as a celebrity enabled him to grab women “by the p—y.”
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump said on the tape. “You can do anything.”
In a video deposition for the Carroll trial, Trump essentially stood by his Access Hollywood comments. “Historically, that’s true with stars,” Trump said, later adding: “Unfortunately or fortunately.”
Trump did not testify
Trump did not testify during the trial, a fact frequently noted by Carroll’s lawyers in their arguments to jurors.
Instead, Trump’s attorneys cross-examined Carroll and her allies at length. They also argued to jurors that Carroll produced no proof of her rape claims, and harped on the number of years that Carroll waited before going public. They suggested that Carroll made her allegations because Trump had been elected president and she wanted to embarrass him.
In his Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump falsely claimed that he was “not allowed to speak or defend myself.” In fact, he passed up the chance to testify even when given an opportunity over the weekend by the federal judge in the case. The jury also heard Trump’s denials in the videotaped deposition.
Trump spent part of the trial in Scotland and Ireland inspecting his golf properties. While in Ireland late last week, Trump said he would fly back to New York to face his accuser, even though his attorneys were just hours away from closing their case without calling any witnesses at all.
The judge gave Trump until 5 p.m. Sunday to file a motion to re-open the case to allow his testimony; no such filing ever came.
Civil lawsuit
Trump could not be criminally prosecuted for sexual assault because the statute of limitations has long since passed. Instead, Carroll sued Trump under a 2022 New York state law that gave victims a one-year window in which to sue their alleged attackers.
The law is called the Adult Survivors Act.
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Trump’s other legal problems
At the start of the trial, Trump used Truth Social platform to blast Carroll and the trial, drawing the ire of the judge.
It remains to be seen whether the case will hurt Trump politically, or help him, and he faces criminal investigations on no less than four fronts.
A New York City grand jury indicted Trump in March on charges of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to ex-mistress Stormy Daniels right before the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors who say the hush money amounted to an illegal campaign contribution are seeking a trial of Trump early next year.
In the meantime, Trump is under investigation in at least three other cases: Attempts to overturn his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden in Georgia; his handling of classified documents and whether he tried to defy a subpoena for them; and any involvement he may have had in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021.
