Donald Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation by a federal civil jury in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon — a stunningly rapid verdict reached after just three hours of deliberation after a two-week trial.
The jury of six men and three women unanimously concluded that the former president did not rape Carroll but concluded that he had sexually abused and forcibly touched her.
This underscores the importance of the propensity evidence that Judge Lewis Kaplan permitted the jury to hear. The two other witnesses who claim to have been sexually abused by Trump testified that they had been assaulted and forcibly groped by Trump, but not raped. And in the Access Hollywood tape that the jury heard, Trump bragged about aggressively kissing and grabbing women in their private areas but did not claim to have raped them. Given the lack of forensic corroboration of Carroll’s allegation, the jury was willing to go only so far as the other victim witnesses and Trump’s own admissions, but not further — not to the extent of rape.
Nevertheless, the sexual-abuse allegations are extraordinarily serious. The jury directed that Trump pay $2,020,000 in damages to Carroll on the sexual-abuse verdict. Trump was ordered to pay an additional $2,980,000 million for defaming Carroll, for total damages of $5 million.
The verdict proves: You can’t beat something with nothing, at least in a civil case. While Trump has complained that he was silenced by the judge (he wasn’t), the fact is that he declined to attend the trial and testify, opting instead to play golf in Europe.
It had to be infuriating to the jurors that Trump blew off the trial when they had to put their lives on hold to attend. More to the point, though, in a civil case, the litigants are expected to testify. If a defendant declines to testify, the jury may draw a negative inference — that he had no compelling defense, or was unwilling to have his story and his credibility subjected to cross-examination.
At the end of summations, Carroll’s lawyer Michael Ferrara reminded the jury — which needed no reminding — that “Donald Trump never looked you in the eye and denied” the allegations. E. Jean Carroll told the jury a disturbing story, but Donald Trump’s silence spoke volumes.