Singer wins groping trial against DJ, awarded symbolic $1

DENVER: Immediately after a jury determined that Taylor Swift had been groped by a radio station host before a concert in Denver, the singersongwriter turned to one of her closest allies — her mother — and later said she hoped the verdict would inspire other victims of sexual assault.

Swift hugged her crying mother after the six-woman, two-man jury said in US District Court on Monday that former Denver DJ David Mueller had groped the pop star during a photo op four years ago. Per Swift’s request, jurors awarded her $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.”

Swift released a statement thanking her attorneys “for fighting for me and anyone who feels silenced by a sexual assault.”

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

Nancy Leong, a law professor at the University of Denver, said the verdict is important because “we are getting to the point in society that women are believed in court. For many decades and centuries, that was not the case.”

Leong, who also teaches in the university’s gender studies program, said the verdict will inspire more victims of sexual assault to come forward.

“The fact that she was believed will allow women to understand that they will not automatically be disbelieved, and I think that is a good thing,” Leong said.

Swift and her mother initially tried to keep the accusation quiet by reporting the incident to Mueller’s bosses and not the police.

But it inevitably became public when Mueller sued Swift for up to $3 million, claiming the allegation cost him his $150,000-a-year job at country station KYGO-FM, where he was a morning host.

“I have been trying to clear my name for four years,” he said after the verdict in explaining why he took Swift to court. “Civil court is the only option I had. This is the only way that I could be heard.”

On ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Mueller he might appeal and insisted he did nothing wrong “and I can pass a polygraph.”