Donald Trump is to fly from Florida and turn himself in surrounded by federal agents but his lawyer said he would not appear in court in handcuffs (file picture). Photo: AFP
Donald Trump sexually abused magazine writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and then defamed her by branding her a liar, jurors decided on Tuesday, dealing the former US president a legal setback as he campaigns to retake office in 2024.
The nine-member jury in Manhattan federal court awarded about $US5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Although the finding of sexual abuse was enough to establish Trump's liability for battery, the jury did not find that he raped her.
The former US president, campaigning to retake the White House in 2024, will appeal, said his spokesman Steven Cheung. Trump will not have to pay so long as the case is on appeal.
The jury deliberated just under three hours before reaching a verdict.
Carroll held hands with her lawyers as the verdict was read.
She left the courthouse with her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, smiling and wearing sunglasses, and entered a car without speaking to reporters.
During the seven-day trial in Manhattan federal court, Carroll, 79, told jurors that Trump, 76, raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996, and then ruined her reputation by denying it happened.
Her defamation claim concerns an October 2022 post on Truth Social in which he called her allegations a "complete con job" and "a Hoax and a lie."
"I know you're going to do your duty under your oath to render a just and true verdict," US District Judge Lewis Kaplan told the jury of six men and three women.
Jurors were required to reach a unanimous verdict.
They were tasked with deciding whether Trump raped, sexually abused or forcibly touched Carroll, any one of which would satisfy her claim of battery. They were separately asked if Trump defamed Carroll.
A former Elle magazine advice columnist, Carroll was seeking unspecified compensatory damages, as well as punitive damages.
E Jean Carroll arriving at court in New York last month. Photo: AFP / Timothy A. Clary
Trump, the front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential field, has denied raping Carroll and accused her of making up the story to drive sales of a 2019 memoir in which she made her claims public.
On Tuesday, Trump posted a message on his Truth Social platform, claiming that "despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties," he was not "allowed to speak or defend himself" against what he called a false accusation.
"I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome!"
Trump opted not to present a defence at trial, gambling that jurors would find Carroll failed to make a persuasive case.
Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said during closing arguments that a 2005 Access Hollywood video in which Trump said women let him "grab 'em by the pussy" bolstered the accounts of Carroll and other women who have accused Trump of sexual assault.
"He admitted on video to doing exactly the kinds of things that have brought us here to this courtroom," Kaplan said.
Two of Carroll's longtime friends testified that she told them about the attack shortly after it occurred and said they believed her. Jurors heard from two other women who said Trump sexually assaulted them in separate incidents decades ago. Trump denies those claims as well.
"Three different women, decades apart, but one single pattern of behaviour," Kaplan said, arguing that Trump's defence was asking jurors to believe the "ridiculous" claim that the other witnesses conspired to lie.
In a video deposition played for the jury last week, Trump denied raping Carroll.
"It's the most ridiculous, disgusting story," Trump said in the video. "It's just made up."
Trump's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told jurors during closing arguments that the haziness of Carroll's account made it impossible for Trump to defend himself.
"With no date, no month, no year, you can't present an alibi, you can't call witnesses," Tacopina said. "What they want is for you to hate him enough to ignore the facts."
Impact on presidential hopes uncertain
President from 2017 to 2021, Trump is the front-runner in opinion polls for the Republican presidential nomination and has shown an uncanny ability to weather controversies that might sink other politicians.
It seems unlikely in America's polarised political climate that the civil verdict will have an impact on Trump's core supporters, who view his legal woes as part of a concerted effort by opponents to undermine him.
"The folks that are anti-Trump are going to remain that way, the core pro-Trump voters are not going to change, and the ambivalent ones I just don't think are going to be moved by this type of thing," said Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist in Pennsylvania.
Any negative impact was likely to be small and limited to suburban women and moderate Republicans, Gerow said.
Trump has cited the Carroll trial in campaign fundraising emails as evidence of what he portrays as a Democratic plot to damage him politically.
His poll numbers improved after he was charged in New York in March with falsifying business records over a hush money payment to a porn star before his victory in the 2016 presidential election.
That indictment, filed in New York state court, made him the first US. president past or present to be criminally charged. Trump has pleaded not guilty and said the charges are politically motivated.
Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said it remained to be seen whether the verdict in Carroll's case would make Trump "unpalatable" to Republican voters beyond his base, prompting them to coalesce around another candidate.
-Reuters