requires penetration with a penis; any other kind of penetration is defined as sexual assault. Since Carroll wasn't sure what he penetrated her with, the jury found him civilly liable (but not criminally guilty because it was a civil case), of sexual assault, not rape. But the judge later said that the common understanding of what constitutes rape includes all kinds of penetration:
A judge has now clarified that this is basically a legal distinction without a real-world difference. He says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.
The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason, they argue, is that sexual abuse could be as limited as the “groping” of a victim’s breasts.
Kaplan roundly rejected Trump’s motion Tuesday, calling that argument “entirely unpersuasive.”
“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,’ ” Kaplan wrote. He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/19/trump-carroll-judge-rape/
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