Former US President Donald Trump was found liable for “sexual assault” by a New York civil court on Tuesday and ordered to pay some $5 million in damages for the assault. On the other hand, he was not guilty of “rape”, estimated the nine jurors.
The nine jurors unanimously determined that Donald Trump was not responsible for a “rape” as accused by former press columnist E. Jean Carroll, according to an AFP journalist present in the courtroom. hearing in Manhattan Federal Civil Court.
The jury also decided that Donald Trump should pay him five million dollars in damages for this sexual assault in a New York department store in 1996 and for defamation from the revelation of the facts by E. Jean Carroll in 2019.
E. Jean Carroll, center, walks out of federal court in Manhattan, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in New York City. [Seth Wenig – Keystone]
“A shame”
“This verdict is a shame”, immediately denounced on his social network Truth Social the former American president. His campaign team said in a statement that he intended to appeal the decision.
His plaintiff, E. Jean Carroll, 79, was very moved and hugged several of his lawyers and his entourage who had tears in their eyes. She left, smiling, under her sunglasses, the Manhattan courthouse without making a statement and accompanied by her faithful lawyer Roberta Kaplan.
The civil trial lasted two weeks and Donald Trump did not come to testify in Manhattan federal court, presided over by Judge Lewis Kaplan.
The former tenant of the White House (2017-2021), who intends to win it back in 2024, has always denied the facts.
Book of 2019
Just after the jury retired to deliberate, Roberta Kaplan lamented that Donald Trump had published a new post on her Truth Social social network, when the judge had asked that he refrain from disrupting the proceedings through the media.
The former president asserted, wrongly, that he had not been authorized to speak at this trial, when the judge had invited him to testify on numerous occasions.
E. Jean Carroll had made her first revelations in 2019 in a book, where she accused Donald Trump, then President of the United States, for the first time. She had initially filed a complaint for defamation, because he had accused her of lying to sell his work.
A person with a “Trump is a rapist” sign outside New York Civil Court on April 25, 2023. [Justin Lane – Keystone]
Then, last November, she filed a lawsuit for rape, thanks to a new law in the State of New York allowing alleged victims to sue in civil justice even for potentially prescribed facts.
If there are no eyewitnesses who saw Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll more than 25 years ago on the shelves – deserted according to the plaintiff – of the store, two close friends of the journalist confirmed in court that she had confided to them, shortly after the alleged facts, to have been “attacked” or “attacked” by the businessman.
Two other women, among those who have accused Donald Trump of sexual assault in the past, also gave their testimony before the jury.
According to Me Kaplan, the former American president would have acted each time according to the same “modus operandi”, the one he himself describes in a video that has become famous, where we hear him in 2005 boasting of kissing and touch women as he pleases.
>> Read also: The video of the testimony of Donald Trump, accused of rape, made public
agencies/miro
2023-05-09 21:17:53
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