The Carroll case verdict was based on:
- Carroll's testimony
- Testimony from two friends she told in the 1990s (contemporaneous disclosure)
- Testimony from other women describing similar experiences
- Trump's Access Hollywood tape statements
- Trump's deposition testimony
That's... literally all testimony and statements. No physical evidence, no DNA, no security footage, no documents. The "shit-load more" you're referring to IS testimony. They are different types of testimony that corroborate a pattern.
You keep saying "testimony ALONE does not convict" but then when shown cases where it does, you call them "exceptions." How many "exceptions" do you need before acknowledging it's an established part of our legal system?
Here's the reality: in many sexual assault cases, especially historical ones, testimony is the primary or only evidence. That's why courts developed extensive frameworks for evaluating credibility. Because they recognized that requiring physical evidence for crimes that typically occur in private would effectively legalize those crimes.
- State v. Michaels(1984): "The victim's testimony alone, if believed by the jury, is sufficient to sustain a conviction."
- People v. Barnes(1986): Conviction upheld based solely on victim testimony.
These aren't "exceptions", they're applications of established law.
Your HOA example actually undermines your own argument. If 28 random, unconnected people from different neighborhoods, different decades, who don't know each other, all independently accused the same HOA president of embezzlement with similar patterns... wouldn't that be worth investigating seriously? The legal system already has mechanisms to evaluate credibility and coordination. That's literally what discovery and cross-examination are for. That's literally what reasonable doubt standards are for.