🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
The judge in the battery and defamation case involving former President Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll spoke about the case on Tuesday and how the verdict will reveal if there's any wrongdoing.
"It is the job of the jury to decide what, if anything, happened," U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Tuesday.
Carroll, a former Elle columnist, previously accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York City in the 1990s. The current case is focused on the battery and defamation lawsuit she filed against Trump for comments he made denying the accusations.
Since it's a civil suit, the jury isn't responsible for deciding if Trump is legally guilty of rape. However, it will have to determine "what, if anything," happened, according to Kaplan, because for Trump's statements that the rape "never happened" to be defamatory, the jury has to determine they were false. This means that the jury will be basing its decision on whether the rape allegation can be established.
The former president was recently indicted by a Manhattan grand jury following District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation of alleged hush money payments made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The former president has denied any wrongdoing in the Daniels case.
In 2019, Trump responded to the allegations levied by Carroll, saying, "I'll say it with great respect: Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened ... I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her."
Additionally, earlier this year, a deposition by Trump in the case was released to the public, in which Trump is heard calling Carroll a "nut job."
"When I say she's not my type, I say she is not a woman I would ever be attracted to," Trump said in the deposition. "There is no reason for me to be attracted to her ... There's no way I would ever be attracted to her."
Trump may have to pay Carroll if the jury sides against him in the case, but he faces no legal repercussions.
Attorney Andrew Lieb, Lieb at Law, told Newsweek on Tuesday that "regardless of how strong Carroll's victory is over Trump, if at all, it will never result in a legal finding that he is guilty of rape. That is because this case is in civil court and rape is in criminal court with different procedural rules, burdens, and standards."
Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers and former federal prosecutor, told Newsweek that "If Carroll wins, she will still have to enforce the judgment. The easiest way to do so is to garnish Trump's wages. But she can also levy his bank account or attach and sell his property."
"If Trump loses, the jury will have found that he raped Carroll. Carroll sued for defamation, but also sexual assault under New York's Adult Survivor's Act that reopened the statute of limitations," Rahmani told Newsweek.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump's spokesperson via email for comment.
About the writer
Matthew Impelli is a Newsweek staff writer based in New York. His focus is reporting social issues and crime. In ... Read more