Former U.S. President Donald Trump has been found liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, according to a jury verdict announced on Tuesday.
The verdict, delivered in a New York City courtroom, awards Carroll $5 million and accuses Trump of sexual abuse and defaming Carroll after she made her allegations public, AP reports.
Jury members found that Trump did not rape Carroll but sexually abused her and awarded damages of $2 million in compensatory damages and $20,000 in punitive damages for battery. The jury also awarded $1 million in damages, $1.7 million for reputation repair, and $280,000 in punitive damages.
Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before delivering their verdict.
Trump was not present for the trial and instead took to social media to criticize the verdict, claiming he does not know Carroll and referring to it as a “disgrace” and “a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time.”
Carroll sought unspecified damages plus a retraction of what she said were Trump’s defamatory denials of her claims.
Carroll, one of more than a dozen women who accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment, went public in 2019 with her allegation that the Republican raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store. The trial’s outcome was a validation for Carroll, and it revisited the controversial topic of Trump’s conduct toward women.
The trial included testimony from two of Carroll’s friends who told jurors she reported the alleged attack to them in the moments and day afterward, as well as other women who had similar experiences with Trump.
Trump’s lawyer argued that Carroll’s account was made up to sell a memoir and to disparage Trump for political reasons.
