Former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) was found guilty this Tuesday of “sexual abuse” and defamation, but not of rape, in the case resulting from the complaints of the writer Elizabeth Jean Carroll, a sentence that Trump himself described as “shame.”
Carroll accused Trump of raping her in the fitting room of a New York department store in the mid 1990s, and also to defame her when she decided to make her complaint public in a book she published in 2019.
(Also: Donald Trump did sexually abuse E. Jean Carroll, according to the jury in the case)
Who is the writer who has been in a legal battle against Donald Trump for four years?
One more blow to Donald Trump
A New York jury found Donald Trump responsible for sexually assaulting and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, condemning the former president to pay him 5 million dollars in damages.
The jury, made up of six men and three women, returned the verdict Tuesday in a Manhattan federal court after deliberating for less than three hours.
The trial rekindled attention on the Trump’s tense record with women the moment he embarks on another run to the White House.
(Also: Writer Carroll Appears as Witness in Trial Against Trump: ‘He Raped Me’)
It is also the first verdict against him personally. in a series of legal cases that threaten to break out during the 2024 campaign. Being a civil case and not a criminal one, Trump never risked jail time for Carroll’s accusations.
The standard of proof was also lower: the jury only had to find that Trump was more likely responsible than not, rather than beyond a reasonable doubt.
Who is Elizabeth Jean Carroll?
Elizabeth Jean Carroll, 79, is a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, a global publication covering fashion, beauty, health and entertainment; he also hosted a daily talk show.
Carroll worked for more than 26 years writing on the pages of ‘Elle’ a column titled ‘Ask E. Jean’ (which would translate Question to E. Jean).
(Read: Trump accused the woman who accused him of rape of being “mentally ill”)
Carroll, who was born in Detroit, United States, in 1943, was Miss Indiana and Cheerleader of the Year in 1964.
His journalistic career began in 1979 and was a contributor to Elle from 1993 to 2019; she has also written for outlets such as Esquire, Outside, and Playboy. In fact, her first article was a quiz on legendary writers Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald that was published in Esquire.
That tour was what would have led the tycoon, Donald Trump, to recognize her in a shopping center where she says that the president raped her. “Hey, you’re that advice lady!” Donald Trump told her, according to the writer; to which she replied, “Hey, you’re the real estate mogul!”
The complaint against Donald Trump
The journalist made public in 2019 her accusation that Trump raped her more than two decades before in a dressing room on the sixth floor of the Bergdorf Goodman department store, on Fifth Avenue, in New York.
Carroll He maintains that the former president asked him for help to buy a gift for a woman. Upon reaching the lingerie section, Trump would have urged her to try on one of the pieces, before which they both played and she asked him to be the one to put on the garment.
When the fitting room door closed, the billionaire “He rammed me, he pushed me against the wallhitting my head very hard, and put his mouth on my lips,” according to the woman’s account.
(You may be interested in: USA: What is Title 8, the expulsion rule that replaces Title 42?)
Later, she assures that the tycoon unzipped his pants and, forcing his fingers around his intimate area, “pushes his penis halfway – or all of it, I’m not sure – inside me”, narrates the journalist.
For his part, Donald Trump flatly denied having raped the journalist and assured that he never met her.
“Regarding the ‘news’ from E. Jean Carroll, who claims we met 23 years ago at Bergdorf Goodman: I have never met this person in my life. He is trying to sell a new book, and that should make his motivation clear. It should be sold in the fiction section,” Trump said in a statement four years ago.
However, his argument has not yet changed, after the jury’s decision was known, Trump spoke out saying again that he has “the slightest idea who this woman is”, referring to Carroll.
“This verdict is a shame, a continuation of the greatest witch house of all time.“, declared the former Republican president on his social network Truth Social.
The complaint, carried out more than two decades later, led to a Manhattan federal court finding him guilty on Tuesday after deliberating for less than three hours; making Donald Trump the first former president of the United States to be found responsible for sexual abuse.
However, the president was not found guilty of rape. The trial has reignited attention on Trump’s fraught record with women as he embarks on another run for the White House.
The writer is only looking for ‘her good name’
This Monday, before the jury’s decision was known, Carroll’s lawyer told the Manhattan court that The writer was not looking for money in the trial against the former president, but “to restore his good name.”
“For Jean Carroll, this complaint has nothing to do with money,” said attorney Roberta Kaplan, from the prosecution body, alleging that it is really about “recovering her good name,” referring to the different qualifications that Carroll has received from Trump -as a liar or mentally ill, among others- since he learned of the complaint.
Kaplan again addressed Trump’s comment that Carroll was “not (his) type,” reminding jurors of Trump’s reaction to seeing an old photo in which he mistook Carroll for his own ex-wife Marla Trump.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
TIME
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