Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Former US President Donald Trump’s efforts to re-enter the White House in 2024 suffered a jolt on Tuesday when the jury found him liable for sexually abusing in the year 1996 advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, now 79, and awarding her USD 5 million.
Announcing the verdict in a New York City court, jurors rejected Carroll’s claims that she was raped but found Trump liable for sexually abusing her.
Earlier, in Trump’s absence, US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury before the panel began discussing Carroll’s allegations of battery and defamation shortly before noon, the media reported.
The former President insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her. He posted a new message on social media, complaining that he is not allowed to speak or defend himself, even as reporters scream questions about this case at him.
Trump never attended the trial, which is in its third week, and rejected an invitation to testify.
His attorney, Joe Tacopina told the jury in closing arguments on Monday that Carroll’s account is too far-fetched to be believed. She made it up to fuel sales of a 2019 memoir in which she first publicly revealed her claims and disparaged Trump for political reasons.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Trump’s October deposition and his notorious comments on a 2005 Access Hollywood video in which he said celebrities can grab women between the legs without asking.
She urged jurors to believe her client.
In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself, she said. He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.
Carroll testified she had a chance encounter with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower. It was a lighthearted interaction in which they teased each other about trying on a piece of lingerie before Trump became violent inside a dressing room.
Tacopina told jurors there was no reason to call Trump as a witness when Carroll can’t even recall when her encounter with Trump happened.
He told the jury Carroll made up her claims after hearing about a 2012 Law and Order episode in which a woman is raped in the dressing room of the lingerie section of a Bergdorf Goodman store.
Two of Carroll’s friends testified that she told them about the encounter with Trump shortly after it happened, many years before the episode aired.