Former president Donald Trump is the first former U.S. president to be criminally charged, facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The felony counts are related to payments intended to silence an adult-film actress, Stormy Daniels, during his 2016 presidential campaign — a scheme that prosecutors said amounted to an illegal conspiracy to win the White House. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts.
However, another woman, the model Karen McDougal, has returned to the media spotlight after she also was named in the statement of facts released by the Manhattan district attorney, who is prosecuting the case.
Here’s what to know about McDougal and her alleged relationship with Trump.
Karen McDougal, 52, is a former Playboy model known for her appearances in the late 1990s and is a health, lifestyle and beauty columnist.
She was born in Indiana and began her career in her 20s as a fitness model and was featured in national ad campaigns and commercials, according to her official website.
She became a Playboy Playmate in 1997 and gained the accolade of Playmate of the year in 1998. She also appeared on the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine in 1999.
McDougal is an advocate for awareness of breast implant illness after she had her implants removed in 2017, as well as for deep vein thrombosis and animal rights.
McDougal alleges that she engaged in a 10-month consensual “romantic relationship” with Trump, which she said began in 2006 at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel and led to their meeting “many dozens of times” until 2007 — allegations that Trump denies.
In an interview with CNN in 2018, McDougal said that she and Trump had had a 10-month relationship, meeting frequently at various Trump properties — including the apartment he shared with his wife, Melania.
“After we had been intimate, he tried to pay me,” McDougal said of Trump but denied taking any money. She described the relationship as serious and loving.
“I was attracted to him, yes. He’s a nice-looking man. And, you know, I liked his charisma,” she told CNN. “He always told me he loved me.”
McDougal also said that she did not recognize Trump’s public persona as president but that she did vote for him.
“What everyone sees on TV, I didn’t see in that man, because that man was very sweet, very respectful, very loving, very kind and caring,” McDougal said.
She also publicly apologized to Melania Trump. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t want it done to me. I’m sorry,” she said.
A White House spokesperson at the time said that Trump denied he ever “had a relationship with McDougal” and dismissed the story as “just more fake news.”
The National Enquirer, a U.S. tabloid, bought the exclusive rights to McDougal’s story in August 2016 but did not publish it — a practice sometimes referred to as “catch and kill,” which is intended to bury a story. The tabloid paid McDougal $150,000 during Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016, as well as agreeing to let her write fitness columns and pose for covers.
McDougal later brought a lawsuit against American Media Inc. (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer, in a bid to be released from a nondisclosure agreement, claiming that Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen and others had “worked secretly” with AMI as part of a “broad effort to silence and intimidate her,” according to court documents. The parties reached a settlement agreement in April 2018.
In 2021, the Federal Election Commission fined AMI $187,500 for violating election laws, deeming the McDougal payment effectively an illegal in-kind corporate contribution to Trump’s presidential campaign. The watchdog that brought the complaint against AMI said the payment allegedly benefited Trump’s campaign by suppressing McDougal’s story before voters went to the polls.
Trump was charged in New York on Tuesday with falsifying business records, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office also accused Trump of engaging in a far-reaching scheme to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by suppressing potentially negative information about himself.
The indictment centers on the previously reported payment of $130,000 to Daniels, paid by Cohen, then Trump’s personal attorney, to bury a story alleging an extramarital relationship between Trump and Daniels.
The payments to McDougal are not part of the criminal charges but have been cited in the statement of facts released by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) as evidence of a pattern of behavior. The statement of facts does not name McDougal but refers to her as “Woman 1.”
“AMI ultimately paid $150,000 to Woman 1 in exchange for her agreement not to speak out about the alleged sexual relationship, as well as for two magazine cover features of Woman 1 and a series of articles that would be published under her byline,” it said. “AMI falsely characterized this payment in AMI’s books and records, including in its general ledger.”
The court documents say that in a conversation captured in an audio recording in 2016, Trump asked about Woman 1: “So what do we got to pay for this? One fifty?” and suggested paying by cash.
Trump told a crowd of supporters at his Mar-a-Lago Florida estate later Tuesday: “The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
Ann E. Marimow and Callum Borchers contributed to this report.