WASHINGTON. First, an embarrassing sentence against Donald Trump, who thus sees his new race for the White House compromised. After a few hours of deliberation, the jury of an ongoing civil trial in New York found him guilty not of actual rape but of sexual assault against the writer Jean Carroll in the dressing rooms of a department store in the Big Apple in 1996. And of having then defamed her with a post on his social network Truth in October 2022 in which he defined the woman’s accusations a “farce”, a “scam”: a line maintained by the defense throughout the hearings. The tycoon was then sentenced to a total compensation of 5 million dollars.
“Trump raped me in a store locker room”. When the writer Jean Carroll accused the former president of rape
by our correspondent Alberto Simoni
On Wednesday evening he will have to defend himself in his first public outing after the sentence, in a debate on CNN. Thus ends after two weeks a trial that will make history, even of the #Metoo movement, and which will leave an indelible stain on the image of the former president and on his relationships with women, undermining his consent in the female electorate. And very little will be worth the extremis rescue of Melania, who a few hours before the verdict had given an interview to Fox News to reaffirm her support for her husband’s re-nomination and her faith in another victory to lead America again « towards greatness and prosperity.
The debate kept the country glued to television, especially when Carroll testified in the courtroom recounting the vivid details of the episode and his feelings of guilt. “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me,” she had begun, summarizing a suffering that lasted 30 years and confirmed by some friends. “When I wrote about the violence, he denied it. He lied and destroyed my reputation. I’m here to get my life back,” explained the 79-year-old journalist and columnist, arriving in court with her gaze hidden by large black glasses.
Carroll, at the time a journalist for Elle magazine, accused the tycoon of raping her in 1996 in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store after the two met at a party and he asked her for suggestions for a gift. “She was a horrible feeling. She put her hand inside me and turned her finger », said the writer revealing the details of her violence and confessing that she is still tormented by the memory of Trump abusing her in her dressing room.
Carroll also explained why he had never denounced the former president before 2019. “I was ashamed, I thought it was my fault,” he said in a voice choked with tears. Her terrifying experience “marked her forever” and she was never able to have a love affair again. In the courtroom she too had to justify herself for not having screamed (“I was petrified with fear”). The jury did not believe the rape version but had no doubts about the sexual assault. Trump never appeared at the trial, limiting himself to a private deposition later shown to the jurors in which he ended up testifying against himself: first stating that Carroll was not his “type”, only to then confuse her with his ex-wife Marla Maples, then confirming what was said in a notorious audio, namely that when one is a star like him he can kiss or take women by their genitals with impunity.
“I have absolutely no idea who this woman is, this verdict is a shame, a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time”: so Donald Trump commented on his social Truth the verdict of the New York jury.