E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump (Photos left to right: AP Photo/John Minchillo and Emily Elconin/Getty Images)
A New York civil jury determined that former President Donald Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s and later defamed her when denying the allegations. The jury determined Carroll should receive $5 million from Trump.
The verdict followed fewer than three hours of deliberations.
Carroll spent three days on the witness stand and called 10 other witnesses in service of her account that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s. She told jurors that Trump penetrated her with his fingers and his penis, stating flatly: “She raped me.” She said that she told two of her friends, writer Lisa Birnbach and local TV anchor Carol Martin, almost immediately. Both testified in Carroll’s support, as did two other women who accused the former president of sexual misconduct.
Trump did not present a defense case and declined repeated opportunities to testify. He claimed he wasn’t there.
In a speedy verdict, jurors resoundingly embraced Carroll’s core claim, even if they rejected the allegation that the encounter constituted rape. Jurors chose a more expansive option on the verdict form: sexual abuse.
His attorney Joe Tacopina told jurors that the crux of the defense relied on cross-examination of the witnesses and their private communications. Trump’s legal team accused Carroll, Martin and Birnbach of joining a political conspiracy to smear a former president whom they hated.
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan derided that proposition as Trump’s “Big Lie,” and her co-counsel Michael Ferrara said that three accomplished women wouldn’t perjure themselves in service of such a “harebrained” scheme.
Both sides agreed that if the jury found Birnbach and Martin’s accounts credible, they would find in Carroll’s favor. Tacopina spent a considerable part of his closing argument trying to discredit those witnesses.
This is a developing story.
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