A jury has found that former US President Donald Trump sexually abused writer Jean Carroll, Daily Mail reports.
The panel of six men and three women also found that Trump injured advice columnist Carroll in a Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman dressing room and defamed her when he called her a liar, ordering the former President to pay $5m in damages.
But they ruled after just three hours of deliberation that the evidence did not show that the former president raped her.
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Carroll bowed her head as the verdict in the battery allegation was read out. As the defamation verdict was read she bowed it again, nodding in agreement. Afterwards, she stood up and shook hands with Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina.
In a fiery post to Trump’s social media app Truth Social, he wrote in all caps, “I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. This verdict is a disgrace – a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt of all time.”
Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct or assault by more than two dozen women, but this has so far been the only case to end up before a jury.
Carroll, 79, sued for battery under the Adult Survivors Act, a law passed in New York that allowed a one-year window for sexual assault claims normally outside of the statute of limitations.
Her claim for defamation was based on statements made by Trump, 76, when he was President and posts to Truth Social, his own social network, in which he called her a liar.
Over two weeks, the jury heard emotional testimony from three accusers and two of Carroll’s friends, among other witnesses, while Trump himself was a no-show.
There was a last-minute hiccup Tuesday before the verdict over a social media post by Trump in which he claimed he wasn’t allowed to ‘defend himself’. Trump was allowed to testify but his lawyers did not file an application by the deadline which was set by the judge at 5pm on Sunday.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote: “Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself.”
He added he would ‘appeal the unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome!”
(Punch)
