A federal jury on Tuesday found that Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, a writer who accused the former president of attacking her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
The verdict in the civil trial marks the first time that Trump, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than two dozen women, has been held legally responsible for sexual assault. And it adds fresh tarnish to the former president’s reputation as he seeks to regain the White House amid a tide of legal troubles.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Carroll testified that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room after a chance encounter one evening in the spring of 1996. The jury found that Carroll did not prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Trump raped her. But the jury did find him liable for sexual abuse and for defamation. The defamation count arose from a statement Trump made last year in which he called Carroll’s allegation a “hoax.”
“I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back,” Carroll said in a statement after the verdict. “Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed.”
Her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said the verdict was a triumph for Carroll as well as “for democracy itself, and for all survivors everywhere.”
“No one is above the law,” she said, “not even a former President of the United States.”
In a social media post Tuesday, Trump called the verdict “a disgrace.” He added: “a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time!”
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said Trump would appeal the verdict. “They rejected the rape claim and they always claimed this was a rape case, so it’s a little perplexing. But we move forward,” Tacopina said.
He added he had spoken to the former president. “He’s firm in his belief, like many people are, that he cannot get a fair trial in New York City based on the jury pool. And I think one could argue that’s an accurate assessment based on what happened today.”
Trump did not testify in court and did not even attend the trial. His legal team did not call any witnesses. The case hinged on the testimony of Carroll, who told the jury over the course of three days on the witness stand how her run-in with Trump at the luxury department store turned into a brutal attack in a dressing room in the store’s lingerie department.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me,” Carroll, 79, told the jury. Referring to a book she wrote in which she detailed the alleged incident, she said: “And when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation. And I’m here to try to get my life back.”
In vivid and, at times, tearful testimony, Carroll recounted how Trump shoved her against the dressing room wall, banging her head, and pinned her there with his body weight. She said he then pulled down her tights, inserted his fingers into her vagina and then penetrated her with his penis. The assault lasted a few minutes, she testified, before she managed to free herself and flee the store onto Fifth Avenue.
She said she contemporaneously disclosed what had happened to two friends, both of whom testified on her behalf, but didn’t tell anyone else about it for more than two decades, when she went public with her account by publishing an excerpt of her book in New York Magazine in 2019.
Asked if she had stayed quiet for so long because she was worried about how others would react to her story, she rejected that idea. “No, I knew how others would react,” she said. “Women who are raped are looked at as soiled goods. They’re looked at as less.”
Though jurors never saw Trump in person, they did hear from him in the form of a videotaped deposition, footage from a presidential debate and campaign rallies, and the “Access Hollywood” tape, a recording from 2005 in which Trump, caught on a hot mic, boasted that when it comes to women, if you’re a star you can “grab them by the pussy.”
In his deposition, Trump denied having raped Carroll or even knowing her, calling her allegation “the most ridiculous, disgusting story.”
“It’s just made up,” he said.
His lawyers, meanwhile, argued that Carroll’s testimony wasn’t credible, largely because Carroll couldn’t pinpoint certain pieces of information, including the precise date of the alleged attack. And they questioned other aspects, such as her claim that she didn’t recall seeing any other shoppers or sales attendants during the encounter at Bergdorf’s.
Carroll’s attorneys leaned heavily on the “Access Hollywood” tape, arguing that it amounted to “a confession,” as one of them put it, that Trump had a habit of sexually assaulting women and that he relied on a playbook of sorts to do so. To bolster that argument, her attorneys called two other Trump accusers as witnesses: Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff.
The nine-person jury delivered its unanimous – as required by law – verdict after an eight-day trial. Jurors in the case remained anonymous throughout the trial — even to Carroll, Trump and their lawyers — after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered that their identities be kept secret due to “a very strong risk that jurors will fear harassment.”
Though the statute of limitations had long expired on Carroll’s battery claim, she was able to sue Trump under a New York state law that opened a one-year window beginning in November 2022 during which people can sue their alleged abusers for sexual assault.
For Carroll, the courtroom experience was bittersweet. Asked during her testimony whether she was glad she spoke out against Trump, she broke into tears.
“I’ve regretted this about 100 times,” she said, pausing. “But in the end, being able to get my day in court, finally, is everything to me,” she said, her speech interrupted by crying. “So I’m happy.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Carroll, a magazine writer, testified for a second day in her civil lawsuit against the former president. She is suing him for battery and defamation. He has said the alleged incident “never happened.”
The questioning got off to a terse start as Tacopina wished Carroll “good morning” twice before she would reply to him. “There ya go,” he said when she finally responded.
Carroll has said that she believes the alleged attack at Bergdorf Goodman occurred in the evening on a day between the fall of 1995 and the spring of 1996, and under questioning from her own lawyer on Wednesday, she added that she believes it took place on a Thursday. A former Bergdorf employee testified that Thursdays were the only nights of the week the luxury department store stayed open late.
But Carroll has repeatedly said she can’t recall exactly what date it happened.
On Thursday, Tacopina questioned why Carroll said only now that it was a Thursday and why neither she nor two friends she says she told contemporaneously can recall the date.
“I wish to heaven we could give you a date,” Carroll said. “I wish we could give you a date.”
Carroll testified that she always had a hunch the alleged attack occurred on a Thursday, but didn’t identify the day of the week in a book she wrote or in interviews because she wasn’t absolutely sure and “I tried to stick to the facts.”
Tacopina also questioned Carroll about a 2017 email referencing Trump between her and her friend Carol Martin, in which Martin wrote: “As soon as we are both well enuf to scheme, we must do our patriotic duty again …” Carroll responded: “TOTALLY!!! I have something special for you when we meet.”
When Carroll testified, as she had also done Wednesday, that she couldn’t recall what the email meant, Tacopina asked how she could remember details from the alleged rape from at least 27 years ago but couldn’t recall anything about a six-year-old email.
“Those are facts that I could never forget,” Carroll said of the alleged attack. “This is an email among probably hundreds of emails between Carol and I that I have no recollection of.”
Tacopina also pressed Carroll on why she went public with her story when she did, in 2019. Though Tacopina suggested she was using the claim to try to attract a book publisher, Carroll disputed that, saying she was instead prompted by revelations about film producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation in The New York Times in 2017.
“When that happened, across the country women began telling their stories, and I was flummoxed [and thought], wait a minute, can we actually speak up and not be pummeled?” Carroll testified. “I thought, well this may be a way to change the culture of sexual violence. The light dawned. I thought, we can actually change things if we all tell our stories. And I thought by god, this may be the time.”
She continued: “It caused me to realize that staying silent does not work. It doesn’t work. If women speak up, we have a chance of limiting the harm that happens.”
Tacopina challenged Carroll on specific details of her account of the alleged rape.
He pressed her on her recollection that she didn’t see anyone in the department store as she and Trump rode the escalators to the sixth floor. “I was not looking for other people,” she said. “I was in a very engaging conversation with Donald Trump.”
He questioned why, as she has testified, she would have suggested Trump, a relatively tall and heavyset man, try on a skimpy women’s lace bodysuit they found on a counter in the lingerie department. “It just struck me as very funny,” she said. “If a man tells me to put on some lingerie, my natural instinct is to tell him to go put on the lingerie.”
Tacopina asked how she could have fought back against Trump while wearing 4-inch-heels, as she has said. “I can dance backwards and forwards in 4-inch-heels,” she replied.
And, in perhaps the most heated moment of the day, Tacopina questioned why she wouldn’t have screamed if she were being sexually assaulted.
“I’m not a screamer. You can’t beat up on me for not screaming,” she replied, growing agitated. “I’m not beating up on you. I’m asking you questions,” Tacopina said.
“Women don’t come forward. One of the reasons they don’t come forward is because they’re always asked, why didn’t you scream?” Carroll told the courtroom. Women are told, she said, “You better have a good excuse if you didn’t scream.”
At that point, Carroll raised her voice. “I’m telling you: He raped me whether I screamed or not,” she exclaimed.
“Do you need a minute, Ms. Carroll?” Tacopina asked.
“No,” she replied. “Go right on. I don’t need an excuse for not screaming.”
The trial will not meet on Friday. Carroll is expected to continue her testimony on Monday.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The advice columnist E Jean Carroll has denied that she falsely accused Donald Trump of raping her in order to sell books and for political ends.
On the third day of Carroll’s civil suit against the former president for battery and defamation, Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, put it to her that she made her allegation the centrepiece of a book proposal she was trying to sell.
Carroll is seeking damages for the alleged rape in a New York department store changing room in the mid-1990s and for defamation after Trump accused her of lying when she went public with her accusations in the book.
Carroll, who spent most of the day under cross-examination, said she was motivated to speak up after the New York Times’ exposure of Harvey Weinstein’s crimes prompted women across the US to relate their own experiences of sexual assault and fired the #MeToo movement.
But she did acknowledge that she decided to sue Trump for defamation following a conversation at a party with George Conway, then the husband of one of Trump’s top White House aides, Kellyanne Conway, but also a prominent Trump critic.
“George Conway does not like Donald Trump,” said Carroll, without elaboration.
Asked why she did not speak up when Trump was running for president in 2016, Carroll said it did not occur to her.
“I was never going to talk about what Donald Trump did,” she said. “Never.”
Tacopina sought to discredit Carroll’s account by dwelling on why she didn’t scream during the alleged attack, and why she admits laughing about it immediately afterwards.
Carroll stuck by her account that she went into the dressing room with Trump because she thought she was playing out a joke by telling him to put on the lingerie that he had been urging her to wear.
“If a man tells me to try on some lingerie, I tell him to go try it on,” she said. “I had no concept of how this would turn out. I thought this funny conversation would continue.”
Carroll said that when Trump suddenly attacked her in the changing room, she instinctively laughed.
“Laughter is a very good weapon to calm a man down if he has any erotic intention,” she said.
Tacopina then pressed Carroll repeatedly about why she didn’t scream.
“I was in too much of a panic to scream,” she responded. “You can’t beat up on me for not screaming.”
Carroll said that women who report rape are frequently asked why they didn’t scream, which was one of the reasons they do not go to the police.
Tacopina continued to press the issue, including what he said were differing accounts Carroll had given over the years for not screaming including that she “isn’t a screamer”, that she didn’t want to make a scene and that she was too full of adrenaline.
Carroll said all of those things could have been at play, and in any case it did not matter.
“I’m telling you he raped me whether I screamed or not,” she said, her voice breaking.
Tacopina also confronted Carroll over the fact she did not call police and instead called a friend, Lisa Birnbach.
Trump’s lawyer pressed Carroll about why, by her own account, she was laughing as she spoke to Birnbach. Carroll said that she was looking for reassurance that what she had just gone through was not as bad as she feared.
As Carroll began describing the assault, Birnbach told her to stop laughing.
“If Lisa had laughed I would have felt so much better. I was disoriented,” she said.
Instead, Birnbach told Carroll: “He raped you.”
“Those are the words that brought the reality to the forefront of my mind,” said Carroll.
Later, another friend told her not to go to the police because Trump was too powerful to take on.
“That’s the advice I wanted so that’s the advice I followed,” said Carroll.
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She said it was not odd to avoid going to the police. “Many women do not go to the police. I understand why,” she said.
Tacopina put it to Carroll that her view of Trump was of a “brutal, dangerous man”.
“Yes, he is,” she replied without hesitation.
E Jean Carroll, right, leaves federal court with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan on Thursday. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
Tacopina also confronted Carroll with a part of the draft of her book written a couple of years into his presidency that was not included in the final version, but which appeared to indicate a political motive for her going public with her accusations.
“But now after two years of watching the man in action, I became persuaded that he wants to kill me. He’s poisoning my water. He’s polluting my air. And as he stacks the courts, my rights over my body are being taken away state by state. So, now I will tell you what happened,” she wrote.
Tacopina also focused on an email sent by Carol Martin, a key witness in the trial who Carroll said she told about the alleged rape shortly after the attack.
In September 2017, Martin sent an email critical of Trump: “This has to stop. As soon as we’re both well enuf [sic] to scheme, we must do our patriotic duty again.”
Carroll replied: “TOTALLY!!! I have something special for you when we meet.”
Asked what that something special was, Carroll said she had no idea but added that the two women often bought “funny gifts” for each other.
Tacopina put it to Carroll that she started the book only two weeks after the email exchange. Carroll said that was not true.
Tacopina also latched on to a chapter in Carroll’s book – entitled What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal – in which the author advocates for all men to be shipped to Montana “for retraining”.
Trump’s lawyer appeared to be suggesting this was evidence of an anti-male bent when the judge, Lewis Kaplan, waded in to tell him it was satire modeled on A Modest Proposal, the renowned Jonathan Swift satirical essay from 1729 which suggested that impoverished Irish people should sell their children as food to the rich.
“Move on,” said the judge.
Trump is not expected to testify. But he has claimed the encounter never happened, that he does not know Carroll and she is not his “type”. On Wednesday, he called the case “a made-up scam” and Carroll’s lawyer a political operative, an outburst that drew a warning.
Carroll told the court about online abuse she received after accusing Trump and again when he posted messages on social media denying the accusations and accusing her of being a liar.
The jury was shown some of the messages, which included misogynistic epithets and other personal attacks.
Asked if she regretted the lawsuit, Carroll said: “About five times a day. It doesn’t feel pleasant to be under threat.”
The trial resumes on Monday with Tacopina continuing his cross-examination of Carroll.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
E. Jean Carroll is a writer who was an advice columnist for Elle Magazine for many years. She alleges that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room of luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s. In her lawsuit, she says Trump attacked her inside a dressing room in the lingerie department, where he “seized both of her arms” and then “jammed his hand under her coatdress and pulled down her tights.” After unzipping his pants, “Trump then pushed his fingers around Carroll’s genitals and forced his penis inside of her,” according to the lawsuit.
What does Trump say about her accusations?
Trump says the incident “never happened” and that Carroll’s allegation is fabricated. He said in 2019 that he had “never met this person in my life” and that she was motivated to make up the claim against him in order to sell a book in which she described the alleged assault. Last year on his social media site, he again accused her of promoting a “hoax” and said that, “while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!”
What is Carroll asking for?
Carroll is asking for unspecified damages for battery and defamation and for Trump to retract the 2022 statement he made on his social media site.
Why isn’t this a criminal case?
Carroll never contacted the police at the time of the alleged incident and, according to her, told only two friends about it before going public with her claims decades later, in 2019. By that point, the criminal statute of limitations had expired long ago.
How can Carroll sue over an incident that took place more than two decades ago? What about the statute of limitations?
The statute of limitations for people to bring civil lawsuits over sexual assault in New York is generally three years. But in 2022, New York passed the Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one-year window — from Nov. 24, 2022, to Nov. 24, 2023 — for people to sue their alleged assailants even if the statute of limitations had expired. Carroll filed her lawsuit within minutes of the law taking effect on Nov. 24, 2022.
Will Trump testify?
It’s unlikely. Carroll hasn’t indicated she will call him as a witness. He could testify in his own defense, but his lawyers have indicated he is unlikely to attend the trial. He was deposed in this case, so lawyers for both Carroll and Trump can use his deposition as evidence.
Is there any chance of an out-of-court settlement?
Lawyers for Carroll and Trump haven’t indicated in court filings that there has been any discussion of an out-of-court settlement. Such an outcome is always possible, however, even at the last minute, as evidenced by the recent settlement between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News. That agreement was announced the day opening statements were set to begin in the defamation trial.
Is anyone paying for Carroll’s legal fees?
Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, is helping pay for Carroll’s lawsuit, according to court filings. Hoffman, a major Democratic donor, has helped pay for “certain costs and fees,” said Carroll’s lawyers, who added that their client wasn’t involved in obtaining outside funding. Trump’s lawyers sought to delay the trial after they learned of the third-party funding, saying it raised questions about her credibility and motivations. The judge didn’t allow a delay, but did permit them to question Carroll about the financing.
How long will the trial last?
Lawyers for Carroll and Trump have indicated in court filings that they believe the trial will last between one and two weeks.
Will the trial be televised?
No. The trial is in federal court, which doesn’t permit cameras.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Donald Trump missed his chance to use his DNA to try to prove he did not rape the writer E Jean Carroll, a federal judge said on Wednesday, clearing a potential roadblock to an April trial.
The judge, Lewis A Kaplan, rejected the 11th-hour offer by Trump’s legal team to provide a DNA sample to rebut claims Carroll first made publicly in a 2019 book.
Kaplan said lawyers for Trump and Carroll had more than three years to make DNA an issue in the case and both chose not to do so.
He said it would almost surely delay the trial scheduled to start on 25 April to reopen the DNA issue four months after the deadline passed to litigate concerns over trial evidence and weeks before trial.
Trump’s lawyers did not immediately comment. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declined to comment.
Carroll’s lawyers have sought Trump’s DNA for three years to compare it with stains found on the dress Carroll wore the day she says Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996. Analysis of DNA on the dress concluded it did contain traces of an unknown man’s DNA.
Trump has denied knowing Carroll, saying repeatedly he never raped her and accusing her of making the claim to stoke sales of her book. She has sued him for defamation and under a New York law which allows alleged victims of sexual assault to sue over alleged crimes outside the usual statute of limitations.
After refusing to provide a DNA sample, Trump’s lawyers switched tactics, saying they would provide one if Carroll’s lawyers turned over the full DNA report on the dress.
But Kaplan said Trump had provided no persuasive reason to relieve him of the consequences of his failure to seek the full DNA report in a timely fashion.
The judge also noted that the report did not find evidence of sperm cells and that reopening the dispute would raise a “complicated new subject into this case that both sides elected not to pursue over a period of years”.
He said a positive match of Trump’s DNA to that on the dress would prove only that there had been an encounter between Trump and Carroll on a day when she wore the dress, but would not prove or disprove that a rape occurred and might prove entirely inconclusive.
Kaplan added: “His conditional invitation to open a door that he kept closed for years threatens to change the nature of a trial for which both parties now have been preparing for years. Whether Mr Trump’s application is intended for a dilatory purpose or not, the potential prejudice to Ms Carroll is apparent.”
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
The Carroll case is just one source of legal jeopardy for Trump, who is now one of two candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
He also faces an investigation of a hush money payment to a porn star who claims an affair, investigations of his financial and tax affairs, investigations of his election subversion attempts, and investigation of his retention of classified records.
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
