Jury Finds Trump Liable For Sexual Abuse of E. Jean Carroll, Orders Him to Pay $5 Million in Damages

AP Photo/Seth Wenig

A New York City jury reached a verdict in the civil rape trial against former President Donald Trump, finding he did sexually abuse her and commit battery, as well as finding him liable for defaming her, awarding a total of five million dollars in damages.

In 2019, E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a New York City Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. Trump vociferously denied the accusations and launched a series of attacks on Carroll, all leading to her suing him for defamation and a separate civil claim for the alleged rape. The ex-president’s deposition included several shocking moments, including one where Trump — who had been adamant that Carroll was “not my type” — mistook a photo of her for his second wife, Marla Maples.

Trump had previously claimed that he would go to New York to “confront” Carroll, as well as disparaging the judge in the case as “extremely hostile,” but he did not actually testify at the trial or even attend it in person, despite the judge giving him multiple opportunities to testify and even one last chance to reopen his defense case with a deadline of Sunday. That did not stop the ex-president from complaining in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning about the case, falsely claiming he was “not allowed to speak or defend myself.”

As Law&Crime managing editor Adam Klasfeld reported, the verdict form used by the jury directed the jurors to analyze “various theories” under which they could find Trump liable under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which allowed certain claims including sexual assault that were previously barred by statutes of limitation to be brought to court.

Essentially, the jurors were asked to decide if Trump “raped,” “sexually abused,” or “forcibly touched” Carroll, and a finding of “yes” for any of those would be enough to establish a claim of battery. The issue of whether Trump defamed her was decided separately, but was obviously closely intertwined, since the Trump comments Carroll said were defamatory were about him denying he raped her, calling her a liar, and so on.

Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan took about 90 minutes to deliver the jury instructions. The jury would end up deliberating not much longer than that, less than three hours, to reach their verdict. As a civil matter, the standard was by a preponderance of the evidence, not the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard used in criminal cases.

The jury did not find Trump had raped Carroll, but did answer “yes” to the question of sexual abuse, sufficient to satisfy the battery claim, and also found that he had defamed her. The verdict was unanimous.

As a civil matter, Trump will not face criminal sanctions and will not have to register as a sex offender, but the jury did also decide the issue of monetary damages.

For the battery claim, the jury awarded Carroll damages of about $2 million, and then for the defamation claim additional damages of nearly $3 million, for a total of $5 million.

As Klasfeld reported, Carroll bolstered her case with the testimony of two friends, writer Lisa Birnbach and local TV anchor Carol Martin, whom she had told about the encounter with Trump in the immediate aftermath, as well as two other women who accused the ex-president of other acts of sexual misconduct.

This is a breaking news story and has been updated.