Following a two-week trial, a New York jury in federal court has determined that Donald Trump did sexually abuse E Jean Carroll.
The verdict stems from an incident that occurred nearly 30 years in a Manhattan department store.
The former US president did not appear in court to testify, but has repeatedly denied the accusation that was made against him.
The jury was made up of nine individuals, with US District Judge Lewis Kaplan telling them prior to their verdict on Tuesday: "I know you're going to do your duty under your oath to render a just and true verdict."
Despite the statute of limitations running out on the case, the state of New York recently enacted a law that allows for decades-old sexual assault claims to be filed as civil lawsuits, per BBC News.
After determining that Trump sexually abused Carroll, she was awarded $2 million in damages.
The jury also found that Trump defamed Carroll, after he previously described her accusations as a "con job" in a social media post in October of 2022. For this, Carroll was also awarded a further $3 million in damages (which is made of of $2.7 million in compensatory damaged and a further $280,000 of which are punitive).
Another $20,000 was awarded to Carroll in punitive damages against Trump over a claim of battery.
The jurors, however, disagreed with Carroll's allegation that the former POTUS raped her.
Trump, 76, has since branded the verdict a "disgrace", writing in a post for his TRUTH social media platform: "I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE - A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!"
Carroll, 78, a long-time columnist for Elle magazine, first publicly made the causation against Trump in a book in 2019.
In her lawsuit against the former president, Carroll's legal team wrote: "Trump’s underlying sexual assault severely injured Carroll, causing significant pain and suffering, lasting psychological harms, loss of dignity, and invasion of her privacy," whilst adding: "His recent defamatory statement has only added to the harm that Carroll had already suffered."]
But following the filing of the lawsuit, Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, attempted to dismiss Carroll's claims, stating: "While I respect and admire individuals that come forward, this case is, unfortunately, an abuse of the purpose of this Act which creates a terrible precedent and runs the risk of delegitimizing the credibility of actual victims."
In a previous interview with CNN, Carroll said that Trump "just went at it", allegedly cornering her in a dressing room at the luxury department store, adding that "he pulled down my tights, and it was a fight. I want women to know that I did not stand there, I did not freeze, I was not paralyzed, which is a reaction could have had because it's so shocking. No, I fought."
She told the New York court during the trial: "As I'm sitting here today I can still feel it."