WASHINGTON: Following the verdict of a New York jury finding, former US President Donald Trump slammed the judgement as a “disgrace”. Trump on Tuesday was found liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E Jean Carroll in the 1990s. The New York jury awarded the former magazine writer $ 5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
“This verdict is a disgrace — a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time,” the former president, using all capital letters, posted on his Truth Social media platform. “I have absolutely no idea who this woman is,” he added in reference to E. Jean Carroll, who brought the lawsuit against him.
Trump, 76, denied it, saying he never encountered Carroll at the store and didn’t know her. He has called her a “nut job” who invented “a fraudulent and false story” to sell a memoir.
The verdict was announced in a federal courtroom in New York City on the first day of jury deliberations. Jurors rejected Ms. Carroll’s claims that she was raped, but found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and for defaming Mr. Carroll after she made her allegations public. Trump chose not to attend the civil trial and was absent when the verdict was read.
Carroll, 79, testified during the civil trial that Trump, 76, raped her at a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in either 1995 or 1996, then harmed her reputation by writing in an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform that her claims were a “complete con job,” “a hoax” and “a lie.”
Following the judgment, Carroll, in a statement said, “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.”
The former president however faces no criminal consequences and there was never a threat of prison as the case was a civil case.
Carroll was one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment.