Donald Trump has been ordered to pay $5 million in damages to journalist E. Jean Carroll after a US jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan in 1996. While the jury rejected the accusation of rape, they upheld her other complaints in the civil trial. Trump called the verdict a “disgrace” and a continuation of the “greatest witch hunt of all time.” This is the first time Trump has faced legal consequences over sexual misconduct allegations, which date back to decades and involve around a dozen women.
During the two-week-long civil trial, Carroll said that the alleged assault left her feeling ashamed and unable to have romantic relationships. Her lawyers called two other women to the witness stand who testified that Trump sexually assaulted them decades ago. Former businesswoman Jessica Leeds said that Trump groped her in the business class section of a flight in the United States in the 1970s, and journalist Natasha Stoynoff said that Trump kissed her without her consent during an interview at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005.
Trump did not testify during the proceedings, nor did his defense team call any witnesses. A video of a sworn deposition he gave in October was played to the jury. In it, Trump called Carroll a “liar” and “really sick person.” His lawyers argued that Carroll invented the allegation “for money, for political reasons, and for status.”
Carroll filed her lawsuit under a New York law that gave victims of sexual assault a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers decades after attacks may have occurred. The jury was tasked with deciding whether Carroll’s lawyers proved her case by a preponderance of the evidence.
The case is one of several legal challenges facing Trump that threaten to complicate his bid to regain the presidency. Last month, he pleaded not guilty in a criminal case related to a hush-money payment made to a porn star just before the 2016 vote. Trump is also being investigated over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia, his alleged mishandling of classified documents taken from the White House, and his involvement in the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021.
