Jury Awards $5-M To E. Jean Carroll, Trump's Sexual Assault Victim

A jury found Donald Trump liable Tuesday (Wednesday, May 10, 2023, in Manila) for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in a judgment that could haunt the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House, Larry Neumeister reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Jurors rejected Carroll’s claims that she was raped but found Trump liable for sexually abusing her.

The verdict was announced in a federal courtroom in New York City on the first day of jury deliberations.

Jurors rejected Carroll’s claims that she was raped but found Trump liable for sexually abusing her. The deliberations lasted for about three hours, Washington Post and the New York Times also reported.

Hours earlier, US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury before the panel began discussing Carroll’s allegations of battery and defamation shortly before noon.

Trump, who did not attend the trial, has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her.

“He didn’t even bother to show up here in person,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said. She said much of what he said in his deposition and in public statements “actually supports our side of the case.”

Kaplan added: “In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself. He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.”

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