Donald Trump rape verdict: $5 million for battery

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A jury found Donald Trump liable on Tuesday for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding him $5 million in a verdict that could haunt the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House.

The verdict was announced in a federal courtroom in New York City on the first day of jury deliberations. Jurors rejected Carrolls’ claim that she was raped, but found Trump liable for sexually abusing her.

Hours earlier, US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read legal instructions to the nine-person jury before the panel began deliberating on allegations of battery and defamation against Carroll just before noon.

Trump, who did not attend the trial, insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her.

Kaplan told jurors that the first question on the verdict form was to decide whether they thought there was more than a 50% chance that Trump raped Carroll inside a store dressing room. If they answer yes, they decide whether compensatory and punitive damages should be awarded.

If they answer no to the rape question, they can decide whether Trump subjected her to a lesser degree of assault involving sexual contact without her consent or forced touching to degrade her or satisfy her desire. sexual desire. If they answer yes to any of those questions, they’ll decide if damages are appropriate.

In defamation claims stemming from a statement Trump made on social media in October, Kaplan said jurors would have to be guided by the higher legal standard of clear and convincing evidence.

He said they had to agree that it was highly likely that Trump’s statement was false and was made with malicious intent to injure or out of hatred or ill will with reckless disregard for the Carrolls’ rights.

Meanwhile, Trump posted a new message on social media, complaining that he is now awaiting a jury’s decision on a False Impeachment. He said he was not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard-nosed reporters shouted questions about this case at me.

Trump says he won’t speak until the trial is over, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me regardless of the outcome!

Trump never attended the trial, now in its third week, and declined an invitation to testify, which the judge extended over the weekend even after Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said Thursday that the his client.

Tacopina told jurors in closing arguments Monday that the Carrolls’ account was too far-fetched to be believed. He said he did so to fuel sales of a 2019 memoir in which he first went public with his claims and to discredit Trump for political reasons.

The Carrolls’ attorney, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Trumps October deposition and his well-known comments in a 2005 Access Hollywood video in which he said celebrities can grab women between the legs without asking questions.

He urged jurors to believe his client.

He didn’t even bother to show up here in person, Kaplan said. He said that much of what he said in his deposition and in public statements actually supported our side of the case.

In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself, he said. He knows what he did. He knew that he had sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.

Carroll, 79, testified that he had a chance encounter with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower. She said it was a light-hearted interaction in which they teased each other about trying on a piece of underwear before Trump turned violent inside a dressing room.

Tacopina told jurors there was no reason to call Trump as a witness when Carroll could not remember when his encounter with Trump occurred.

He told the jury that Carroll made his claims after hearing about a 2012 Law and Order episode in which a woman was raped in the dressing room of the lingerie section of a Bergdorf Goodman store.

They did their secret method on an episode of one of the most popular television shows, he said of Carroll.

Two of Carrolls friends testified that he told them about the meeting with Trump shortly after it happened, years before the episode of Law and Order aired.

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