John McCarthy
NEW YORK — A federal jury in New York today found former President Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and forcibly touching the writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s, and of defaming her last fall when he accused her of making up that account.
The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The verdict in the civil trial came after less than three hours of deliberations in U.S. District Court in lower Manhattan. The jury did not find Trump liable for rape, as Carroll had alleged
The nine-member panel started discussing potential verdicts in the case at 11:50 a.m. ET after Judge Lewis Kaplan gave the panel final instructions and a 10-question verdict form.
Carroll, 79, alleged in a lawsuit that Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.
Trump cannot be prosecuted for the alleged rape because the statute of limitations for such a crime has long since passed.
But Carroll is making a civil claim of battery for the alleged attack under a New York state law enacted in late 2022 that opened a one-year window for lawsuits alleging sexual assaults would otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations.
Carroll also claims that Trump defamed her last fall when he said she had made up her account of being raped.
Trump, 76, called the allegations “a complete con job,” and said that she was not his “type.”
Trump, who leads early polls for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, did not testify during the trial.
But portions of his deposition taken last fall by Carroll’s lawyer were played for jurors during the trial, and during closing arguments on Monday.
Carroll took the witness stand. So did two women who testified she had told them right after the alleged incident that Trump had raped her.
Two other women testified that Trump had kissed and groped them without their consent in incidents that occurred years apart.
