A jury has found former US President Donald Trump guilty of sexual battery against an Elle Magazine columnist in a New York department store in the 1990s, though Trump was found not liable for raping E Jean Carroll in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman.
The jury also found Mr Trump liable for defamation for calling the writer’s accusations „a hoax and a lie”, reports the BBC.
It is the first time Mr Trump has been found legally responsible for a sexual assault, despite the plethora of such accusations against him. Two women also say they were sexually assaulted by Mr Trump decades ago. One woman told jurors that Mr Trump groped her during a flight in the 1970s. Another woman said that Mr Trump had forcibly kissed her while she was interviewing him for an article she was writing in 2005.
The Manhattan jury ordered Mr Trump to pay her about $5m (£4m) in damages.
Mr Trump’s lawyer said the former president plans to appeal against the decision.
As the trial was in civil court rather than criminal, Mr Trump will not be required to register as a sex offender.
After the verdict, Mr Trump, 76, posted on his social media platform Truth Social in all capital letters: „I have absolutely no idea who this woman is.”
„This verdict is a disgrace – a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time!”
The standard of proof in civil cases is lower than in criminal cases, meaning that jurors were only required to find that it was more likely than not that Mr Trump assaulted Carroll. Carroll, however, states that Trump raped her.
