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.
Embracing her lawyers at the plaintiff’s table, Carroll was all smiles as she left the federal courthouse with her attorneys. Reporters swarmed around her, as she was escorted into her car, beaming: “We’re very happy,” her attorney Roberta Kaplan said.
“I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back. Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed,” Carroll said in a statement after the verdict. “I would like to express my deep and lasting gratitude to all those who have stood by me from the start, especially my incredible and fearless legal team, led by Robbie Kaplan, who never, ever backed down in pursuit of truth and justice.”
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: “He 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 in the store and didn’t know Carroll.
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.
Shortly after a jury slapped him with millions in defamation damages, Trump made the claim once again in an all-caps post on his website Truth Social, the same social media platform that sparked his liabilities behind this lawsuit.
“I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS,” Trump insisted. “THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
Trump was photographed with Carroll at a party, with their then-spouses Ivana Trump and John Johnson. In a deposition, the former president famously confused Carroll in that picture with his ex-wife Marla Maples.
This photograph of Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll at a party was embedded in her complaint.
The gaffe was more than an embarrassment: It was an evidentiary win for Carroll, whose lawyers didn’t hesitate to note it contradicted Trump’s reaction to her allegations.
“She’s not my type,” Trump told reporters, in the remarks that sparked the legal battle.
Asked whether his three wives were his type, Trump answered in the video deposition: “Yeah.” Jurors never had an opportunity to see the former president in person at his trial, only virtually, as Trump elected to rage at the proceedings from afar.
Trump appeared to be prepared for defeat.
On the cusp of deliberations, Trump groused on Truth Social, falsely, that he was “not allowed to speak or defend” himself at trial. He rejected multiple opportunities to take the stand.
In lieu of a participating client, 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.
Within hours of considering the evidence, the defense effort fell flat with the nine people asked to consider it.
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