New York District Court: In a civil case against former President Donald J. Trump, the Jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming American Journalist E. Jean Carroll and directed him to pay her $5 million dollar damages.
Trump was accused of raping magazine writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid 1990s in Bergdorf Goodman department store and defamed her in public statements in response to her rape accusation against him calling her a ‘liar’. Trump had denied the rape charge and disputed that whether his statements were actionable. Trump had repeatedly also attacked courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even individual jurors in other matters.
The Jury, comprising of six men and three women found Trump guilty of sexually abusing and defaming Carroll as the same charges were sufficiently proved by Carroll. The Jury also found that Trump’s conduct had injured Carroll. The verdict form mentioned that Trump’s conduct was willfully reckless or done with conscious disregard of Carroll’s rights and the statements against Carroll were made with actual malice, ill will, thus, the Jury awarded punitive damages of $5 million dollars to Carroll.
However, the Jury did not find Trump guilty of rape charges. The Jury’s decision came while Trump was campaigning to regain the U.S. presidency in 2024.
[E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump, Decided on 09-05-2023]