Former US President Donald Trump has been ordered by a New York jury to pay $5 million in compensation and fines to writer E. Jean Carroll after he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against her. Carroll had accused Trump of raping her in a fitting room at a luxury Manhattan store in 1996. However, the jury rejected this claim, stating that they could not conclusively prove it.
During the two-week-long trial, Carroll testified that Trump’s post on his social media platform, Truth Social, where he called her allegations “a complete con job,” “a hoax” and “a lie,” harmed her reputation. Carroll’s lawyer, Robert Kaplan, expressed satisfaction with the verdict, while Carroll herself did not speak to reporters.
Trump has denied all accusations of sexual misconduct and did not attend the trial. He has called the verdict a “disgrace” and claimed that it was part of a political “witch hunt” against him. The former president is currently seeking to run for the White House in 2024 and has previously cited the trial in campaign fundraising emails as evidence of what he describes as a Democratic attempt to destroy him politically.
The 79-year-old Carroll, who was working as a writer for Elle magazine at the time of the alleged rape, said that Trump had asked her for help choosing a gift for a woman. They allegedly ended up in a dressing room after looking around the store and making small talk. Here Carroll said that Trump pushed her against the wall and raped her. She said that she was then able to flee after a few minutes.
The verdict comes after Trump was indicted in March over hush money payments to an adult film star before his 2016 presidential election victory. This made him the first former US president to be criminally charged. His poll numbers improved after the indictment.
