Taylor Swift wins groping case against Colorado DJ, awarded a symbolic US$1 in damages

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Taylor Swift was unsparing in her testimony about how radio DJ David Mueller lifted her skirt and grabbed her backisde at a meet-and-greet event in 2013. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:38am, 15 Aug 2017Updated: 8:45pm, 15 Aug 2017

Four years after Taylor Swift tried to handle her groping allegation against a radio station DJ quietly, the pop superstar got a very public victory Monday with a jury’s verdict that she hoped would inspire other women.

Jurors in US District Court in Denver deliberated for less than four hours to find that ex-radio host David Mueller assaulted and battered Swift during a pre-concert meet-and-greet in June 2013. Per Swift’s request, jurors awarded her US$1 in damages — a sum her attorney, Douglas Baldridge, called “a single symbolic dollar, the value of which is immeasurable to all women in this situation.”

After Monday’s verdict, Swift hugged her crying mom and thanked her attorneys “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.”

In this courtroom sketch, pop singer Taylor Swift speaks from the witness box during a trial, in Denver. A jury on Monday, August 14, ruled in favour of Swift that a former radio host groped her during a meet-and-greet before a concert. Photo: AP

“My hope is to help those whose voices should also be heard,” Swift said in a prepared statement, promising to make unspecified donations to groups that help victims of sexual assault.

The six-woman, two-man jury also rejected Mueller’s claims that Swift’s mother, Andrea Swift, and radio liaison Frank Bell cost him his US$150,000-a-year job at country station KYGO-FM, where he was a morning host.