A Legal Record That Demands Examination
The United States legal system operates on the principle that accusations, however credible, are not findings of fact until a court so determines. This article adheres to that principle while fulfilling a separate obligation: to document accurately and completely the formal legal record of allegations and verdicts concerning Donald Trump's conduct toward women. That record includes jury verdicts that represent established legal findings, civil complaints that were never adjudicated on their merits, and a pattern of accounts from numerous women that independent reporting has identified and documented.
Where courts have rendered verdicts, they are reported here as legal findings. Where allegations have not been adjudicated, they are identified as allegations. Trump has denied all of the allegations described in this article, and his denials are part of the public record of each case. The existence of those denials is not a reason to omit the allegations from the historical record; it is a reason to report them with the precision the legal record demands.
The 2016 Federal Complaint: Jane Doe
In April 2016, a civil lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Central District of California by a plaintiff identified as Jane Doe. The complaint was initially filed without attorney representation. It alleged that in 1994, when the plaintiff was 13 years old, she was recruited to attend parties at Jeffrey Epstein's Manhattan townhouse at 9 East 71st Street by a woman who promised her modeling opportunities and payment. The complaint alleged that at one such party, on multiple occasions, Donald Trump subjected her to unwanted sexual contact, and that when she resisted, she was threatened.
The complaint was refiled in June 2016 in the Southern District of New York with attorney Cheney Mason representing the plaintiff, who was then identified in some media reports as Katie Johnson. The refiled complaint was accompanied by a sworn declaration from the plaintiff detailing the alleged events in specific terms. A second sworn declaration was filed simultaneously by a witness identified as "Tiffany Doe," who stated that she had worked for Epstein in a recruiting capacity and had personally witnessed relevant activities at the Manhattan residence.
In November 2016, five days before the presidential election, the complaint was voluntarily dismissed. The plaintiff's attorney stated that his client had received death threats, was fearful for her safety, and could not proceed. A planned press conference in September 2016 at which the plaintiff was to appear publicly was cancelled at the last minute, with the attorney citing threats against her. No court ruled on the merits of the 2016 complaint. Trump's legal team denied all allegations as fabrications and characterized the lawsuit as politically motivated. The identities of those who allegedly made threats against the plaintiff have never been publicly established.
E. Jean Carroll: The First Verdict — May 2023
E. Jean Carroll is a writer and advice columnist who worked for Elle magazine for many years. She alleged that in the mid-1990s, Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In her 2019 book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, Carroll described the incident in detail. Trump denied the assault and denied knowing Carroll. Following his departure from the presidency, his continued public denials formed the basis of Carroll's defamation lawsuit.
The trial in Carroll v. Trump began on April 25, 2023 in federal court in the Southern District of New York before Judge Lewis Kaplan. The trial lasted nine days. Carroll testified. Trump, who had been advised by his legal team of his right to appear and chose not to, was represented by attorney Joseph Tacopina. The jury, which consisted of nine members, deliberated for approximately three hours before returning its verdict on May 9, 2023.
The jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. The jury did not find rape in the strict New York Penal Law definition, which requires proof of vaginal penetration — the jury's verdict form noted this specific distinction. What the jury did find, under the applicable legal standard of a preponderance of the evidence, was that Trump had sexually abused Carroll — a finding that under New York law encompasses forcible touching of intimate body parts — and that his public denials constituted actionable defamation. The jury awarded Carroll $2 million in compensatory damages for the sexual abuse finding and $3 million in compensatory damages for defamation, for a total of $5 million.
Following the verdict, Trump issued a statement calling it "a shame and a disgrace" and reiterating his denial. Judge Kaplan noted in subsequent proceedings that Trump's continued denials, made in the face of a jury verdict finding them defamatory, were themselves actionable.
The Defamation Award: January 2024
A second trial, focused on the damages for continued defamation following the May 2023 verdict, was held in January 2024. The specific question before the jury was how much Trump should pay for the ongoing defamatory statements he had continued to make about Carroll after the first verdict — statements made from the courtroom of his own trial and at public events, denying that the assault had occurred and calling Carroll's account a fabrication.
On January 26, 2024, the jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages: $7.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages for defamation, plus $11 million previously awarded for emotional distress in the first proceeding. The total awards across both cases exceeded $88 million. Trump has appealed both verdicts and has stated publicly that he will continue to deny Carroll's account regardless of the legal outcomes. As of the date of this article's publication, the appeals remain pending.
The Carroll verdicts are jury findings of fact, rendered by American citizens who heard testimony from both sides under the rules of evidence, evaluated the credibility of witnesses, and reached conclusions under the legal standard of a preponderance of the evidence. They represent the only time any court has adjudicated factual allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump on their merits. They are not, as he has characterized them, a political judgment — they are a legal one.
The Broader Pattern: Twenty-Six Accounts
Carroll is the only accuser whose claims have been adjudicated by a jury. She is not the only woman who has made formal or public allegations of sexual misconduct against Donald Trump. A 2023 accounting by The New York Times identified at least 26 women who had made public allegations ranging from unwanted kissing or groping to rape — allegations spanning from the 1970s to the 2000s.
Among the women who have made public allegations: Jessica Leeds, who told The New York Times in 2016 that Trump groped her on a flight in the late 1970s; Kristin Anderson, who told The Washington Post in 2016 that Trump reached under her skirt in a Manhattan nightclub in the early 1990s; Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice, who alleged Trump kissed and groped her in a Beverly Hills hotel in 2007; and Natasha Stoynoff, a journalist who alleged Trump assaulted her at Mar-a-Lago in 2005. Each woman has provided an account with specific details, and in several cases, individuals to whom they reported the incidents contemporaneously have confirmed the reports.
Researchers and journalists examining these accounts have identified recurring structural patterns: incidents concentrated in settings where Trump held professional or social power; accounts of aggressive, non-consensual contact; subsequent legal pressure or NDA use that functioned to suppress or complicate public discussion; and a social context — New York business, real estate, entertainment, and the beauty pageant world — that overlaps with the documented Epstein-adjacent social network of the 1990s and 2000s.
The Standard of Accountability
Two jury verdicts finding Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation are not opinions or allegations. They are legal findings, produced by the judicial process that the American constitutional system designates as the mechanism for determining factual disputes. That Trump has appealed them does not make them less real as legal events; appeals courts do not typically reverse factual findings made by juries who heard live testimony.
The obligation of journalism in documenting this record is to resist both the temptation to treat verdicts as equivalent to allegations and the temptation to treat allegations as equivalent to verdicts. Both of these errors are possible and both are made regularly in coverage of powerful figures. The Carroll verdicts are findings. The other accounts are allegations. Both are parts of the public record that a democracy committed to accountability must be willing to examine and report — however uncomfortable the findings may be for the subject of that record.