Judges ruled that Mr Trump was not responsible for Ms Carroll’s rape. At the hearing, the clerk read out the verdict: “As to assault, has Ms. Carroll proven that Mr. Trump raped Ms. Carroll?” The judges answered “no”.
Ms Carroll and two other women, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, told the jury that Mr Trump had sexually assaulted them in great detail. Ms. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, told the jury on Monday that Mr. Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” words on the Access Hollywood tape sounded like a “confession”.
Ms Kaplan also said Ms Carroll “was exactly” Mr Trump’s type and that he sexually assaulted her in the same way he said he treated women on the infamous tape. She said: “Donald Trump is, in a way, a witness against himself.”
Elle magazine’s advice editor, Ms. Carroll, first spoke about sexual assault in June 2019 in a book excerpt published in New York magazine.
Ms Carroll told the jury during the three-day hearing that she and Mr Trump joked after meeting by chance at Bergdorf Goodman one evening in the mid-1990s.
But after taking an escalator to an empty 6th floor to look for lingerie, Mr. Trump led her into a dressing room, pushed her against a wall and sexually assaulted her.
Ms Carroll told the judges it was very painful. “He put his hand inside me and bent his finger. I can still feel it as I sit here today. Ms. Carroll added a battery charge because New York just passed a law that allows sexually abused people to sue their accused abusers even though the statute of limitations has passed, she said the traumatic event left her unable to form romantic relationships.
The writer said she would receive a “mud wave” on social media every time Mr Trump said something about his claims or wrote about them.
Since the case was heard in civil court, the jury had to decide that Ms. Carroll’s lawyers had shown that Trump was liable for assault and defamation by a preponderance of the evidence.
A clinical psychologist named Leslie Lebowitz said Ms Carroll had signs of post-traumatic stress disorder and had a panic attack after watching an episode of The Apprentice, which was hosted by Trump.
Ms Lebowitz said Mr Trump fans sent death threats to Ms Carroll, so she slept with a loaded gun in her upstate New York cabin. Mr Trump did not appear in the case, but his deposition, in which he confused his second wife Marla Maples with Ms Carroll, was shown to the jury.