Former Elle advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, 79, won her rape and defamation case today in 78-year-old Lewis A. Kaplan’s U.S. District Court, ordering 76-year-old former President Donald Trump to pay $5 million in damages. Trump’s 57-year-old attorney Joe Tacopina said he would appeal the verdict. Trump refused to enter Judge Kaplan’s courtroom during the seven-day trial that had six men, three women return a guilty verdict after only three houses of deliberation, finding Trump guilty of sex abuse and defamation for a 1995 or 1996 incident in the lingerie department dressing room at Bergdof Goodman. Carroll claimed that Trump attacked her in a lingerie dressing room that she and Trump entered together when it pushed her against the wall, hitting her head, and digitally entering and then penetrating her. Jurors heard Trump’s 57-year-old defense attorney Joe Tacopina deny all charges
Carroll claims in a 2019 memoir that Trump sexually attacked her in the Bergdorg Goodman’s lingerie dressing from. Carroll didn’t mention that a 2012 episode of Law & Order featured trial for a rape in a Berdorf and Goodman dressing room. Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina tried to raise doubts not only about that but the fact that Carroll did not scream or report the incident to police when it happened some 25 years after she published her 2019 memoir detailing the Trump rape incident. Carroll said she was motivated to go forward after listening to the Billy Bush’s Access Hollywood tape of saying the celebrities can kiss any woman and grab them in the crotch. Trump dismissed the recording as “locker room” talk, something voters apparently accepted when they voted Trump into the White House in 2016. Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told the jury her client showed up, Trump did not.
No matter how Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina poked holes in Carroll’s story, juror didn’t pay much attention of her admission that Lincoln Project Trump-hater George Conway encouraged her to sue Trump and provide her with an attorney. Conway has worked since before he won office in 2016 to prevent Trump from becoming president. Conway worked feverishly during Trump’s years in office to promote the Russian hoax based on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bogus Steele dossier saying Trump was a Russian agent. Conway would do anything keep Trump from becoming president again, encouraging Carroll to file charges against the former president. Yet you’d think that jurors would see discrepancies in Carroll’s story, raising doubts about her story. Carroll’s attorney knew that the “clear-and-convincing” evidence standard favored her client.
Tacopina offended jurors asking Carroll why she didn’t scream, prompting Carroll on the witness stand to fire back. “You can’t beat up on me for not screaming,” Carroll responded to Tacopina. “I am telling you, he raped me whether I screamed or not,” Carroll said. “I don’t need to an excuse for not screaming,” Carroll told Tacopina to jurors’ gasps. Tacopina would have been better off asking her why she didn’t report a violent sex crime to the police at the time. Carroll didn’t have answer for that but said he told a few friends what happened to her. Carroll’s attorney Robert Kaplan had Jessica Leeds and former People Magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff tell jurors they were both victims of Trump inappropriate touching, one on a flight and the other at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Tacopina was handcuffed letting Carroll’s defense team call a bevy of witnesses against Trump.
Jurors heard Trump videotaped deposition deny Carroll’s allegations, even responding sarcastically, “she’s not my type.” Despite saying in his deposition that the Bergdof Goodman incident “never happened,” Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan highlighted Trump’s insulting denial that she was “not my type.” “You wouldn’t be a choice of mine either, if I’m being honest. I hope you’re not offended,” Kaplan said in court, in her own immature touché to Trump. Whey jurors din’t pick up on the obvious mutual contempt from both sides is anyone’s guess. If nothing else, it should have informed the jury that both side play games. Kaplan let both sides go at each other, telling Tacopina that he would still let Trump testify as late as this weekend. Trump refused to enter Kaplan’s courtroom, knowing how that would like prejudice the eventual outcome with a guilty verdict today.
Jurors in Trump’s rape and defamation trial got it wrong but were swayed by their own liberal biases against the former president. Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan argued that Trump didn’t have the decency, the courtesy, to show up in court, making it out like an insult to jurors. Judge Kaplan told jurors they couldn’t hold it against Trump that he didn’t testify in his own defense. Trump “didn’t bother to show up here in person,” said Kaplann, ignoring the jury’s instructions that Trump’s absence cannot be used against him. Hearing from 11 witnesses, Kaplan put her best case together condemning Trump to the eventual verdict. Tacopina called Carroll’s charges “outrageous,” “unbelievable” and an “affront to justice,” asking jurors to weight out the case objectively. Without Trump showing up with a full-throated defense calling witnesses, Trump’s defense fell on deaf ears,
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
