A Federal Judge Found That Donald Trump Raped E. Jean Carroll
UPDATE (June 29, 2026): The U.S. Supreme Court ends Trump’s appeal. See my new related post, “She Told Trump No. He Ignored Her. Today the Supreme Court Told Him No, and He Could Not Ignore That.”
Let me cut straight to it.
A federal judge reviewed the evidence. He analyzed the jury’s verdict. He examined the testimony. And he concluded that Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll.
Not “sexually abused.” Not “inappropriately touched.” Raped.
The federal appeals court affirmed the judgments in full.
Not enough people know about this or are talking about it.
The court record is clear. The legal findings are unambiguous. And the fact that most Americans still do not know this tells you everything about how far we have fallen when it comes to believing what you hear on Fox News, read on social media, and listen to from the Oval Office. Just like what we’re seeing in the Epstein files, powerful people are being protected and not being held accountable.
Let me share four decades of legal experience with you and walk you through exactly what the courts found in the E. Jean Carroll case. I’ll let you know exactly what the law says, and why the word “rape” is not just appropriate here. It is the only honest word to use.
What Happened in That Dressing Room
In 1996, E. Jean Carroll ran into Donald Trump at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store in Manhattan. What started as playful banter in the store turned into a violent assault inside a dressing room on a deserted floor near the lingerie section.
Carroll testified under oath, over the course of most of three days, that Trump shoved her against a wall. He used his shoulder and his full body weight to pin her there. He kissed her against her will. He pulled down her tights. And he forcibly penetrated her vagina with his fingers.
She was not the only one who told this story. Two friends she confided in shortly after the attack corroborated her account. Six additional fact witnesses supported her testimony. The jury heard it all.
Trump did not attend this trial. He did not testify in person. He sent his lawyers to argue that it never happened. The jury did not believe him.
What the Jury Actually Found
In May 2023, a nine-person jury returned a unanimous verdict. They found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defaming her. They awarded her five million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.
Here is where people get confused. And here is where the media has gotten it dangerously wrong.
The jury answered three questions on a special verdict form. Did Trump rape Carroll? Did Trump sexually abuse Carroll? Did Trump forcibly touch Carroll?
The jury answered no on the rape question. Yes on the sexual abuse question. Trump’s team immediately seized on the first answer. They told the world forget about the sexual abuse finding. There’s nothing to see here because the jury rejected the rape claim. They said it proved he was innocent of rape. And the media repeated it.
As Judge Kaplan points out below, that narrative is false.
The jury was instructed to apply the New York Penal Law definition of rape as it existed at the time of the assault. Unlike the FBI, Uniform Code of Military Justice and other states (described in more detail below), that definition required forcible penetration specifically with the penis. Not with fingers. Not with any other body part. Not with an object. Only a penis.
So when the jury said no on the rape question, they were saying only that Carroll had not proven penile penetration to their satisfaction. They were not saying Trump did not violently penetrate her. The sexual abuse finding means exactly the opposite. Under New York’s Penal Law, “sexual abuse” encompassed any touching of the sexual or intimate parts of a person without consent by the use of forcible coercion. The jury found that Trump did forcibly penetrate Carroll. He did it with his fingers. Under New York’s narrow, outdated statute, that was classified as sexual abuse, not rape.
Under virtually every other legal standard in this country, what Trump did is rape.
Judge Kaplan Called It What It Is
Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan did not let Trump hide behind a technicality.
When Trump moved for a new trial and argued that the damages were excessive because the jury did not find rape, Judge Kaplan denied that motion in a 59-page memorandum opinion issued on July 19, 2023.
Kaplan wrote that Trump “misinterprets the jury’s verdict” and “mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of ‘rape’ to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred.”
Kaplan found that “the proof convincingly established, and the jury implicitly found, that Mr. Trump deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long lasting emotional and psychological harm.”
Kaplan drove the point further. He wrote that the jury’s no answer on the rape question “means only that the jury was unpersuaded that Mr. Trump’s penis penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina. It does not mean that he did not forcibly insert his fingers into her, that he ‘raped’ her in the broader sense of that word.”
Then, in a separate ruling on August 7, 2023, Kaplan dismissed Trump’s counterclaim against Carroll. In that opinion, the judge wrote that the jury’s verdict “establishes, as against Mr. Trump, the fact that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, albeit digitally rather than with his penis. Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms. Carroll’s ‘rape’ allegations.”
Read that again. A federal judge found, on the record, that Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her is substantially true.1
The Law Is on Kaplan’s Side
Judge Kaplan did not invent this interpretation. He applied it. That’s what judges do. And the weight of legal authority across this country backs him up completely. In fact, Kaplan specifically cited federal and state criminal statutes and their definitions to support his conclusion. Here is a survey of the most significant ones.
Start with the federal government. In 2012, the Department of Justice announced that the FBI had revised its definition of rape for the Uniform Crime Reporting program, replacing a definition that had been in use for more than 80 years. The revised definition, which took effect on January 1, 2013, reads: “Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.” Attorney General Eric Holder said at the time that the revised definition would provide “a more accurate understanding of the scope and volume of these crimes.” Under this definition, what Trump did to Carroll is rape. There is no ambiguity.
Federal criminal law reaches the same conclusion. Under 18 U.S.C. Section 2246(2)(C), which defines “sexual act” for purposes of the federal sexual abuse statutes in Chapter 109A of the United States Code, the term expressly includes “the penetration, however slight, of the anal or genital opening of another by a hand or finger or by any object, with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person.” That definition of “sexual act” is incorporated into the offenses of aggravated sexual abuse under 18 U.S.C. Section 2241 and sexual abuse under 18 U.S.C. Section 2242, both of which are commonly referred to in federal practice and by legal commentators as federal rape laws, federal rape, aggravated sexual abuse and and sexual abuse statutes.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice reaches the same conclusion. Under 10 U.S.C. Section 920, the offense of rape is defined by reference to “sexual act,” which includes penetration of the vulva, anus, or mouth, however slight. A service member who forcibly penetrates another person’s vagina with his fingers can be prosecuted and convicted of rape under the UCMJ.
Many states agree. Ohio classifies forcible digital penetration as rape. Massachusetts courts have held that rape includes the insertion of fingers into the vagina. New Jersey classifies forcible digital penetration as aggravated sexual assault in the first degree, which is the state’s highest-level sex offense. In California, Penal Code Section 289 makes forcible penetration of the genital opening by any foreign object, including a finger, a felony carrying up to eight years in state prison. These are not outliers. A comprehensive review by the Women’s Law Project and AEquitas, published through the National Research Council, found that many American jurisdictions define their most serious sexual offenses to include penetration by body parts other than the penis.
Even New York eventually caught up with the rest of the country. In January 2024, the state legislature expanded its legal definition of rape to include nonconsensual vaginal, anal, and oral contact beyond penile penetration. That law took effect in September 2024. It does not apply retroactively to the Carroll case, but it reflects the legislature’s own recognition that the old definition was indefensibly narrow. New York Penal Law had been an aberration. Judge Kaplan recognized that. Every appellate court that has reviewed his findings has agreed.
The Appeals Courts Confirmed The Verdicts
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has now reviewed both Carroll verdicts. It upheld both. In full.
In December 2024, a three-judge panel affirmed the five million dollar verdict in a per curiam opinion. The court found no abuse of discretion in any of the trial court’s evidentiary rulings and upheld the jury’s findings. Trump sought rehearing en banc. On June 13, 2025, the full Second Circuit denied that request. Judges Menashi and Park dissented.
On September 8, 2025, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Second Circuit affirmed the 83.3 million dollar defamation verdict in a 70-page opinion. Judges Denny Chin, Sarah A.L. Merriam, and Maria Araújo Kahn found that the damages were “fair and reasonable” given the “extraordinary and egregious facts” of the case. The court found that Trump’s conduct “involved malice and deceit, caused severe emotional injury, and continued over at least a five-year period.”
The September 2025 opinion is particularly significant for what it says about the underlying sexual assault. In its statement of facts, the Second Circuit wrote that in 1996, Trump “sexually assaulted her by forcibly inserting his fingers into her vagina without her consent.” The court described the jury’s finding as one of “digital penetration,” writing that the jury “found that Trump sexually abused Carroll at the Bergdorf Goodman in 1996 by digitally penetrating her.” The court upheld the trial judge’s instruction to the Carroll jury that it “must accept as true that Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carroll by forcibly inserting his fingers into her vagina without her consent.”
The appellate court rejected every one of Trump’s arguments. It rejected presidential immunity, finding both that Trump had waived the defense by failing to timely raise it and that the Supreme Court’s 2024 criminal immunity decision did not alter that conclusion. It rejected his claim that the damages were excessive. It rejected his challenges to the jury instructions. It affirmed the trial court’s finding that Trump’s defamatory statements were made with actual malice. And it let stand, without challenge, Judge Kaplan’s characterization of the underlying conduct.
The ABC Lesson and Why Precision Matters
There is a reason I am being this precise. And there is a cautionary tale that proves why the distinction matters.
In March 2024, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News repeatedly stated on air that a jury found Trump “liable for rape.” That statement was inaccurate. The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse under the New York Penal Law definition, not rape. It was the judge, not the jury, who characterized the conduct as rape in the common sense of the word. Trump sued ABC News for defamation. In December 2024, ABC settled the lawsuit by paying 15 million dollars to Trump’s presidential library and one million dollars in legal fees.
So let me be crystal clear about what I am saying and what I am not saying.
I am not saying the jury found Trump liable for rape under New York Penal Law. The jury did not. It found him liable for sexual abuse under that statute’s narrow definition.
I am saying that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan found in writing, based on the trial evidence and the jury’s verdict, that Trump forcibly penetrated Carroll’s vagina with his fingers. I am saying that Kaplan ruled in his July 19, 2023 memorandum opinion that this conduct constitutes rape as that word is commonly understood, as it is defined by the FBI, as it is defined by federal criminal statutes, and as it is defined by many state criminal codes in this country. I’m also saying that in his August 7, 2023 ruling on Trump’s counterclaim, Kaplan ruled that Carroll’s allegation that Trump raped her is “substantially true.” The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld those rulings. Twice. In December 2024 for the five million dollar case and in September 2025 for the 83.3 million dollar case.
Judge Kaplan ruled that the verdict established forcible digital penetration by Donald Trump that was “rape” in the broader, ordinary sense of the word. That is not my opinion. That is the legal record.
Where It Stands Now
Trump has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the five million dollar verdict. That petition, case number 25-573, argues that the trial court improperly admitted the Access Hollywood tape and testimony from two other accusers under the Federal Rules of Evidence. Carroll’s legal team has opposed the petition, arguing there is no genuine circuit split and that Trump failed to show any evidentiary error affected his substantial rights.
The Supreme Court initially scheduled a conference to consider the petition for February 20, 2026. Since then, the Court has rescheduled the conference multiple times. As of this writing on March 31, 2026, the justices have not announced whether they will take the case. The repeated rescheduling does not necessarily signal anything about the outcome.
The 83.3 million dollar judgment was affirmed by the Second Circuit panel in September 2025. That case has not yet reached the Supreme Court as a separate certiorari petition.
The total liability across both cases exceeds 88 million dollars. With New York’s nine percent annual interest rate on civil judgments, the amount Trump owes grows every day he does not pay.
What You Need to Take Away from This
The judge who presided over the trial reviewed all of the evidence and the jury’s verdict, and he found that Trump forcibly penetrated Carroll with his fingers. That is rape as defined under federal law. That is rape as defined under the FBI’s definition. That is rape as defined in many American states. And that is rape as every reasonable person understands the word.
Trump has spent years trying to rewrite this story. He has called Carroll a liar. He has called the case a hoax. He has mocked her appearance. He has attacked her credibility at rallies, on social media, and during the trial itself. The Second Circuit specifically noted that he continued defaming Carroll during the trial, at one point proclaiming he would continue to do so “a thousand times.” The jury saw through it. The judges saw through it. And now it is your turn to see through it.
The judgment stands. And no amount of noise, bluster, or political spin changes the record.
Mitch Jackson, Esq.
I am tired of the spin. I am tired of the bullshit.
For years, Donald Trump and his enablers have minimized what he did to E. Jean Carroll. They have called it a hoax. They have called it a witch hunt. They have twisted a jury verdict and a federal judge’s findings into talking points designed to make you look the other way.
A federal court found that Trump forcibly penetrated a woman. A judge called it rape. The appeals court upheld the verdicts. And most of America still does not know.
That is not an accident. That is a strategy.
The same playbook has been running with Jeffrey Epstein. The same deflection. The same silence from the people who should be demanding answers. The same willingness to protect powerful men at the expense of the women, girls and children they hurt. Victims deserve better. They deserve the truth told plainly. They deserve people who refuse to look away.
I write Uncensored Objection because somebody has to say what others will not. I am a trial lawyer. I have spent almost 40 years standing in courtrooms fighting for people who have been harmed by those with more money and more power. I do not work for a political party. I work for the facts. And the facts do not care about your politics.
If you are tired of being lied to, subscribe. If you believe that no one is above the law, subscribe. If you think victims matter more than poll numbers, subscribe.
I will keep building the case. I will keep telling the truth. And I will keep calling bullshit when I see it.
Case No. 1:22-cv-10016-LAK, Document 212 (S.D.N.Y.): This is the ruling where Judge Kaplan wrote that the jury’s verdict “means only that the jury was unpersuaded that Mr. Trump’s penis penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina” and that Trump “deliberately and forcibly penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers.” The key language appears starting around pages 29-31 of the PDF. [read here]
Case No. 1:20-cv-07311-LAK, Document 200 (S.D.N.Y.): August 7, 2023: Opinion Dismissing Trump’s Counterclaim and Ruling on Summary Judgment in Carroll I (24 pages). This is the ruling where Judge Kaplan wrote that the verdict “establishes, as against Mr. Trump, the fact that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, albeit digitally rather than with his penis. Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms. Carroll’s ‘rape’ allegations.” The key “substantially true” language appears on pages 6-8 of this PDF. [read here]
Mitch, thank you for breaking this down into irrefutable case specifics. One thing about the law, the receipts of the outcomes (trial transcripts) cannot be over-written or "deflected" by any loud-mouth politician! Thank you for standing up for ALL sexual assault/rape victims/survivors - female & male. That matters ...significantly! #MeToo!