Jury finds Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed columnist E. Jean Carroll

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 U.S. president a legal setback as he campaigns to retake office in 2024.

The nine-member jury in Manhattan federal court awarded about $5 million US in compensatory and punitive damages.

The jury deliberated for just under three hours. It rejected Trump’s denial that he assaulted Carroll and ruled in her favour. To find him liable, the jury of six men and three women was required to reach a unanimous verdict.

Carroll, 79, testified during the civil trial that Trump, 76, raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in either 1995 or 1996, then harmed her reputation by writing in an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform that her claims were a “complete con job,” “a hoax” and “a lie.”

Trump, who was president from 2017 to 2021, 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.