Former US President Donald Trump has been found guilty of sexual abuse by a civil court in New York. A jury today awarded journalist Jean Carroll a total of five million dollars in damages.
After deliberating for just three hours, the nine jurors unanimously found that Trump abused Carroll three decades ago. The rape allegations against him were not confirmed.
Trump stayed away from the civil trial that started at the end of April – he was also not obliged to appear. However, during the trial, footage of an October interview with Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, was shown. The 76-year-old had once again firmly rejected Carroll’s allegations and emphasized that the former columnist for Elle magazine was not his “type”.
Carroll accused Trump of raping her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in New York in the spring of 1996. She only made her accusation public in 2019, when Trump was president. After accusing her of lying, Carroll sued the President for defamation and later in a second lawsuit for the alleged rape itself and again for defamation.
Trump has been accused by numerous women of sexual misconduct, including rape, over the decades. The Republican, who wants to run again in the 2024 presidential election, has always denied such allegations. He was never prosecuted.
