BUSINESS INSIDER
In May, a jury in Manhattan federal court concluded that Donald Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll and defamed her when he called her a liar, awarding Carroll $5 million in damages.
- A jury found that Donald Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll but not that he raped her.
- Trump’s lawyers want to reduce the jury’s $2 million damages award on that basis.
- The judge says Trump “raped” Carroll “as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.'”
The jury did not, Trump’s lawyers trumpeted at the time, find that Trump “raped” Carroll — the central part of her allegations.
The judge isn’t so persuaded.
In an opinion issued on Wednesday, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, wrote that the trial evidence demonstrated Trump “raped” Carroll in the plain sense of the word.
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,'” Kaplan wrote. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Kaplan’s opinion denied a motion from Trump’s lawyers to reduce the $2 million in damages the jury awarded Carroll for the injuries she received as a result of Trump’s assault on her.
Caroll’s lawsuit alleged that, in the mid-1990s, Trump raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. She said that Trump pushed her against the wall of a dressing room, inserted his fingers into her vagina, and then, she believes, put his penis into her. Years later, Trump defamed her when he called her a liar for disclosing the story, the lawsuit claimed.
She was able to bring the lawsuit, in November 2022, because New York state passed a law in the wake of the #MeToo movement that allows sexual misconduct accusers to bring civil lawsuits when they’d otherwise be barred by the statute of limitations.
The jury had to decide whether Trump was liable for “battery” against Carroll. The definitions of the acts that could constitute “battery,” Kaplan told jurors, were drawn from New York state’s penal code. They had to determine whether Trump “raped,” “sexually abused,” or “forcibly touched” Carroll.
The difference between “rape” and “sexual abuse,” as Kaplan told the jurors, was that “rape” means “any penetration of the penis into the vaginal opening” while “sexual abuse” means “any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person for the purpose of gratifying the sexual desire of either person.”
