Donald Trump, former President of the United States, is guilty of sexual abuse against the writer E. Jean Carroll, according to the opinion of a jury in Manhattan.
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The jury took just three hours to reach its verdict. Tuesday's ruling emphasized that while Trump did not commit rape, he is liable for assault with respect to the complainant's allegation.
Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a Fifth Avenue department store dressing room in the 1990s, but failed to prove that he actually had sex with her and that he did so without her consent.
As a result of the trial, the former president must pay $5 million in damages to the writer. However, Carroll's lawsuit did not specify the dollar amount of damages sought, leaving it up to jurors to decide the total amount.
The mogul was also found liable for "assault" and defamation, due to his attitude after the allegations first came to light in 2019. On that occasion, Carroll was dismissed for Trump's statements where he claimed that she only wanted to boost sales of an upcoming book.
The second lawsuit, ruled on Tuesday, was filed in 2022 after a New York law gave victims of sexual abuse a one-year window to sue for assaults that took place years earlier.
Trump criticized the jury's ruling shortly after news of the verdict, calling it a "disgrace" and another edition of the "greatest witch hunt of all time." "I have no idea who this woman is," the defendant wrote in a Truth Social post.