Keep Factually independent
Whether you agree or disagree with our analysis, these conversations matter for democracy. We don't take money from political groups - even a $5 donation helps us keep it that way.
How many lawsuits has Trump faced for alleged sexual assault since 2016?
Executive Summary
Since 2016, the record in the provided materials shows at least two distinct civil lawsuits accusing Donald J. Trump of sexual assault: the widely reported E. Jean Carroll case, in which a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and ordered damages in 2023, and a later suit filed by Katie Johnson, which appears in court filings in 2025. Other materials catalog many allegations spanning decades but do not document additional post‑2016 civil suits alleging sexual assault; several summaries explicitly note the absence of a comprehensive count and caution that timelines of allegations are not the same as lists of filed lawsuits [1] [2] [3] [4]. The available evidence therefore supports a conservative, verifiable minimum of two post‑2016 civil sexual‑assault suits in these sources, while acknowledging counting limits due to differing definitions, related defamation cases, and incomplete public compilations [5] [3].
1. Why the Carroll verdict matters and what it proved in court
The E. Jean Carroll lawsuit is the clearest post‑2016 adjudication alleging sexual assault: a New York jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a department store and awarded her $5 million, a verdict reported in 2023 and repeatedly summarized in retrospective guides to the cases against Trump [1] [5]. That civil judgment is legally significant because it established liability under New York civil standards rather than a criminal conviction; the case produced a final, adjudicated finding of sexual abuse in civil court and has been used as a focal point in broader public and legal discussions about Trump’s conduct and accountability. Coverage distinguishes this outcome from separate defamation judgments tied to the same factual dispute, underscoring that some post‑2016 litigation blends assault allegations with defamation claims [6].
2. Katie Johnson’s suit: a later filing and its limits in the public record
Court filings cataloged in 2025 indicate that Katie Johnson filed a suit alleging sexual assault against Trump, listed as "Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump et al" in early 2025 sources; the available analysis notes the existence of the filing but does not present a resolved judgment in the materials provided [4]. That filing expands the set of post‑2016 civil accusations to at least two distinct lawsuits when combined with Carroll, but the source material does not detail the suit’s claims, procedural posture, or outcomes, so it cannot be counted as an adjudicated finding the way the Carroll verdict can. The public record’s incompleteness therefore creates a distinction between documented filings and adjudicated liability; reported filings increase the tally of alleged civil actions but do not convert allegations into legal findings without rulings or settlements [4] [3].
3. Broader compilations note many allegations but stop short of a post‑2016 lawsuit count
Comprehensive timelines and guides assembled by journalists compile dozens of accusations dating from the 1980s through the 2010s, and these compilations are useful for context but explicitly do not equate to a verified count of lawsuits filed since 2016 [2] [7]. Analysts emphasize the difference between allegations, criminal investigations, and civil litigation: many women publicly accused Trump over years, but those public accusations did not always translate into post‑2016 civil suits alleging sexual assault. The sources themselves flag this distinction and caution readers that a timeline of allegations is not the same as a list of legal filings or judgments [2] [7].
4. Defamation judgments and related cases complicate simple tallies
Several sources make clear that litigation arising from alleged sexual misconduct frequently involved defamation claims or civil suits tied to denials and public statements, producing large judgments separate from, or in addition to, assault claims—most notably an $83.3 million judgment referenced in summaries tied to the Carroll disputes [6]. This overlap means counting “lawsuits for alleged sexual assault” requires careful definition: do compilations include purely defamation suits that arose from the same factual dispute, or only standalone assault complaints? The materials emphasize that conflating these categories can inflate perceived counts and that rigorous tallies must distinguish filings by cause of action [6] [5].
5. What the evidence cannot support and what to watch for next
The available sources demonstrate that at least two post‑2016 civil suits alleging sexual assault—Carroll (adjudicated) and Johnson (filed)—are documented in the public record provided here [5] [4]. They also make clear that a definitive, comprehensive count of every lawsuit alleging sexual assault since 2016 is not present in these materials: timelines and allegation compilations exist, but they either predate later filings or explicitly note gaps, and one listed case (Doe et al. v. Trump Corp.) is unrelated to sexual‑assault claims [2] [8]. For a fully exhaustive count, consult updated court dockets and curated legal trackers that differentiate between allegations, filings, and judgments and verify filings by jurisdiction and cause of action.