Jury awards Carroll about $5m in damages in civil lawsuit accusing former president of sexual abuse and defamation.
The verdict was read out in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday afternoon, just hours after jurorbegan deliberating following a seven-day civil trial.
Carroll had accused the former US president of sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and then defaming her by dismissing her story – told in a 2019 memoir – as a “con job”.
The nine-member jury determined on Tuesday that the ex-president did not rape Carroll, but they did find him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, The New York Times, CNN and other US news outlets reported.
The jurors awarded the former Elle magazine columnist approximately $5m in compensatory and punitive damages. Because this was a civil case, Trump faces no criminal consequences.
His spokesman, Steven Cheung, said on Tuesday that the former president would appeal. That means he will not have to pay the awarded damages so long as the verdict is being challenged in court.
Former prosecutor Diana Florence told Al Jazeera in a television interview that Trump could still appeal the decision, but does not think that doing so is likely to change the outcome.
“Appeals are very common,” Florence noted. “But it doesn’t seem that there was anything egregious [with the trial] that jumps out that says he is going to prevail….I think very likely it will be upheld.”
Carroll held hands with her lawyers as the verdict was read on Tuesday. She left the courthouse with Kaplan, smiling and wearing sunglasses, and entered a car without speaking to reporters.
“I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back,” Carroll said in a written statement later in the day. “Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed.”