Tuesday May 9, 2023 | 4:38 p.m.
The former president of the United States, Donald Trump, was declared today “responsible for sexual abuse” for having raped the writer E. Jean Carroll, in the framework of a civil trial held in a Federal Court in Manhattan, according to media reports from that country. .
Carroll, 79, told jurors that Trump, 76, raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996, then ruined his reputation by denying it.
His defamation suit refers to an October 2022 post on Truth Social in which Trump called his allegations a “complete scam” and “a hoax and a lie.”
A jury returned a verdict Tuesday in the civil rape trial of the former US president accused of sexually assaulting Carroll and then defaming her by claiming she made up the story. He deliberated just under three hours before reaching a verdict.
It awarded him $5 million in a lawsuit that could haunt the former president in his campaign to win back the White House.
To find him responsible, the jury of six men and three women was required to reach a unanimous verdict.
Because this was a civil case, Trump does not face criminal consequences. Carroll was seeking unspecified monetary damages.
Trump’s legal team chose not to present a defense, betting that jurors would find that Carroll had failed to present a persuasive case.
