A US Federal Jury has unanimously ruled that a former radio DJ sexually assaulted Taylor Swift by groping her during a VIP photo op prior to a concert in 2013.
The six-woman, two-man jury returned a unanimous verdict, ruling that David Mueller, aged 51 at the time of the incident, was guilty of assaulting and battering Swift, after he groped her bare buttocks while posing for the now-widely publicised photo.
Mueller had previously filed for damages against Swift and his former radio station after his former employees fired him over the allegations. But last week, a court threw out that case after a judge ruled that he was, in fact, lawfully fired over the incident.
Swift reportedly stood and hugged her lawyers while her mother watched on in tears as the judge awarded Swift the one single dollar she was chasing, in addition to the public ruling of guilt levelled against Mueller by the Federal Court.
During the trial, Swift had described in explicit detail how Mueller had “stayed latched on to my bare ass check as I moved away from him visibly uncomfortable.” Swift also refused to back down in the face of sexist questioning from Mueller’s attorneys.
After the case concluded, Swift issued a statement via her legal team, thanking her legal team and the judge involved in the case, before asserting that she will be working to assist those who can’t afford to defend themselves in similar cases in the future.
Taylor Swift’s statement. #TaylorSwiftTrial pic.twitter.com/cnmsLQ42KT
— Joe Fryer (@joefryer) August 14, 2017
I want to thank Judge William J. Martinez and the jury for their careful consideration, my attorneys Doug Baldridge, Danielle Foley, Jay Schaudies, and Katie Wright for fighting for me and anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault, and especially anyone who offered their support throughout this four-year ordeal and two-year long trial process.
I acknowledge the privilege that I benefit from in life, in society and in my ability to shoulder the enormous cost of defending myself in a trial like this. My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard. Therefore, I will be making donations in the near future to multiple organisations that help sexual assault victims defend themselves.
Swift had quietly filed countersuit against Mueller in 2015, and had initially sought to keep the matter quiet. However throughout the course of the trial the hugely popular singer refused to back down to intimidatory questioning from Mueller’s lawyers, at one point snapping at an insinuation that she had sought to get him fired after the incident, “I am not going to allow your client to make me feel like it is anyway my fault, because it isn’t.”
Swift’s lawyers asserted that the verdict, that of a symbolic single dollar, had value that was “immeasurable to all women in this situation.”
