Judge Clarifies That By Most Definitions—Besides the Legal One—Trump Raped E. Jean Carroll
Trump "deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers," Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote, while denying the former president a new trial.
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A New York jury decided in May that, according to the state’s legal definition of “rape,” Donald Trump didn’t rape writer E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s. Instead, the jury ruled that Trump was civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, and awarded her about $5 million in total damages. However, just because Trump’s assault didn’t rise to the law’s definition of rape doesn’t mean he didn’t rape her, as understood by the general public, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote in a opinion filed Wednesday. As a result, Trump has been denied a new trial in this matter, though his appeal is still pending.
These case stems from an incident in the mid-1990s in which Trump “shoved” her “against the wall” of a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room, Carroll testified during the trial. She said that Trump digitally penetrated her, “which was extremely painful,” and “then he inserted his penis.” Despite this happening nearly three decades ago, Carroll was able to bring this lawsuit because New York passed a law instituting a one-year window for survivors of sexual violence to sue their accusers, even after the statute of limitation had expired.
Trump’s legal team argued that the unanimous jury’s $2 million compensatory damages was “excessive” because the jury didn’t find that Carroll was raped by Trump, only groped. “While Mr. Trump is right that a $2 million award for such groping alone could well be regarded as excessive, that undermines rather than supports his argument,” Kaplan wrote.