Donald Trump Is Liable For Battery And Defamation, Jury Rules
May 9, 2023 by Carrie McCabe
This article has been updated since its initial publish date to include more info regarding E. Jean Carroll’s case against Donald Trump.
A jury on May 9th found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. She has been awarded with her total of nearly $5 million, as reported by CNN.
The jury awarded Carroll about $2 million in damages for her civil battery claim. They also included approximately $3 million for proving her defamation claim against the former president.
Carroll, to recap, sued Trump for battery. She alleged that his conduct was a sexual offense because it was “rape, sexual abuse or forcible touching,” as the outlet notes. While the jury did not find that she had successfully proven rape, they did find that Carroll proved Trump committed sexual abuse. This allowed her to receive damages for her battery claim.
Last month, the judge in the defamation case brought against Trump by Carroll admonished the twice-impeached former president for making “inappropriate” public statements amid the trial, calling the developments “troubling.”
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan presided over the lawsuit, a federal civil case in which Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in the dressing room of the Bergdorf-Goodman department store in the mid-90s. When New York recently gave residents the opportunity to sue over decades-past sexual abuse claims, the journalist was among the first to do so—and, as Trump has continued to publicly call Carroll a liar regarding the allegations, a defamation claim was also added to the lawsuit.