ABC News has agreed to pay US$15 million to US President Donald Trump's library to settle a lawsuit over supporting George Stephanopoulos's erroneous on-air claim that the to find a president-elect with civic responsibility for enforcement writer E. Jean Carroll.
According to settlement documents released Saturday, ABC will also post a note on its website expressing regret about the claim in Stephanopoulos' March 10 episode. This week program and pay $1 million US in legal fees to Trump's lawyer.
In a statement, ABC News said: “We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit regarding the terms in the court filing.
Trump sued Stephanopoulos and ABC for defamation days after the anchor claimed in an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, that Trump had been found “probable for rape,” falsely accusing the co- decisions in Carroll's two lawsuits against him.
Last year, Trump was found responsible for sexually assaulting and vandalizing Carroll and was ordered to pay US$5 million. In January, Carroll was found liable on additional defamation claims and ordered to pay $83.3 million US. Trump appeals both verdicts.
Neither decision involved a finding of enforcement as defined under New York law.
The judge in both cases, Lewis Kaplan, has said that the jury's decision was that Carroll had not proved that Trump coerced her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a certain section of the New York Penal Law. “
Kaplan noted that the definition of rape was “much narrower” than how rape is commonly defined today, in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes and the other places.
The judge said the decision did not mean that Carroll “did not prove that Mr Trump “raped” her as many people understand the word 'rape'”. In fact … the jury found that Mr. Trump did indeed do that.”
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