Somehow mostly missed in the news cycle is a decision by a judge finding that Donald Trump is a rapist. You can read that decision HERE and you will find that determination on pp. 4-5.
E. Jean Carroll sued Trump for rape and defamation. The jury verdict in her favor found she didn’t prove rape (as narrowly defined by New York law), but did prove sexual abuse. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in direct and punitive damages. Trump motioned for a reduced verdict on grounds that the jury did not find he raped her. Judge Lewis Kaplan denied that request, finding that Trump raped Carroll as the term is commonly understood.
The judge noted that the jury operated under a “far narrower meaning of rape” under New York law than “in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere.” Under those more broad definitions, the jury found that what former President Donald Trump is a rape. In the words of the judge:
The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.
Trump argued the jury’s determination could have meant he just groped her breasts. The judge shot down in graphic terms.
There was no evidence at all of such behavior. Instead, 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.
As the judge repeatedly makes clear throughout the decision: “Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina.”
A vote for Trump is a vote for rape.
