US jury finds Donald Trump sexually assaulted author E Jean Carroll – Times of India

New York: Donald Trump sexual abuse magazine writer E Jean Carroll in the 1990s and then discredited him as a liar, jurors decided Tuesday, dealing with pre us President a legal blow as his Campaign To assume office in 2024.
A nine-member jury in Manhattan federal court awarded nearly $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The jury deliberated for just over three hours. It rejected Trump’s denial that he assaulted Carroll and ruled in her favor. To find him liable, a jury of six men and three women was required to reach a unanimous verdict.
Carroll, 79, testified during a civil trial that Trump, 76, raped her in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996, then wrote a post on his Truth social platform in October 2022 to damage her reputation. Delivered. The claims were “a complete hoax”, “a hoax” and “lies”.
Presidents From 2017 to 2021, Trump continues to lead in opinion polls for the Republican presidential nomination and has shown an uncanny ability to weather controversies that can sink other politicians.
In America’s polarized political climate, it is unlikely that the civil verdict will have an impact on Trump’s core supporters, who see his legal crisis as part of a concerted effort by opponents to undermine him.
“The people who are anti-Trump are going to stay that way, the core pro-Trump voters are not going to change, and I don’t think they’re going to move on from things like that.” Charlie Gero, Republican strategist in Pennsylvania.
Any negative effects are likely to be small and limited to suburban women and moderate Republicans, he said.
Jurors were tasked with deciding whether Trump had raped, sexually assaulted, or forcibly touched Carroll, any of which would satisfy his claim of battery. He was asked separately whether Trump defamed Carroll.
Because this was a civil case, Trump will not face any criminal consequences. Carroll was seeking unspecified monetary damages.
Trump’s legal team opted not to present a defense, with jurors finding that Carroll had failed to make a persuasive case.
Trump had said Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine and a registered Democrat, made the allegations to boost sales of his 2019 memoir and try to hurt him politically.
Because the case was in civil court, Carroll was required to establish her rape claim by “a preponderance of the evidence”—meaning not the higher standard used in criminal cases of “proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” . Carroll had to show “clear and cogent evidence” to prove his defamation claim.
The trial included testimony from two women who said Trump sexually assaulted them decades ago.
Former People magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff told jurors that Trump groped her at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in 2005 and forcibly kissed her for “a few minutes” until a butler interrupted the alleged assault. branch. Another woman, Jessica Leeds, testified that Trump kissed her, groped her and put his hand up her skirt on a flight in 1979.
Jurors also heard excerpts from a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump says women let him “grab the pussy.”
“Historically, that’s been true with the stars … if you look back over the last million years,” Trump said in October 2022 in a video statement played in court. He has repeatedly denied allegations of sexual misconduct.
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told jurors during closed arguments on Monday that the 2005 video was evidence Trump assaulted Carroll and other women.
The federal trial, presided over by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s attorney, began on April 25. Citing the specificity of a civil case against a former president, the judge ruled that the names, addresses and places of employment of jurors would be kept secret.
Carroll testified that she bumped into Trump at Bergdorf’s while he was shopping for a gift for another woman. Carroll said she agreed to help Trump pick out a gift and the two looked at lingerie before he dragged her into a dressing room, slammed her head into a wall and raped her. Carroll testified that she could not remember the exact date or year of the alleged rape.
Carroll faced questions from Trump’s legal team, which attacked the credibility of her account, including why she never reported the matter to police or screamed during the alleged incident.
Two of Carroll’s friends said she told them about the alleged rape at the time, but swore them to secrecy because she feared Trump would use his fame and money to retaliate against her if she came forward.
Carroll told jurors she decided to break her silence in 2017 after rape allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein prompted hundreds of women to come forward with cases of sexual violence by powerful men. She had made her account public during Trump’s presidency.
She said Trump’s public denials ruined her career and provoked a campaign of vicious online harassment by his supporters, including various threatening messages and social media posts.
While Trump did not testify at the trial, a video clip from his October 2022 deposition showed him mistaking Carroll for one of his ex-wives in a black-and-white photo among several at an event.
In the statement, Trump said, “It’s Marla,” referring to his second wife, Marla Maples. Trump had earlier said that he could not have raped Carroll because she was not “his type”.
Trump has cited the Carroll trial in the campaign trail as evidence of emails being portrayed as a Democratic plot to harm him politically.
His polling numbers improved after he was indicted in New York in March for falsifying business records over secretly paying money to a porn star before his victory in the 2016 presidential election.
The indictment, filed in New York state court, made him the first US president to be criminally charged. Trump has pleaded not guilty and says the charges are politically motivated.