Former President Donald Trump has rejected his final likelihood to testify at a civil trial the place a longtime recommendation columnist has accused him of raping her in a luxurious division retailer dressing room in 1996.
Trump, a Republican candidate for president in 2024, was given till 5pm native time (21:00 GMT) Sunday by US District Decide Lewis A Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was filed.
It was not a shock. Trump has not proven up as soon as in the course of the two-week New York Metropolis trial the place author E Jean Carroll testified for a number of days, repeating claims she first made publicly in a 2019 memoir. She is looking for compensatory and punitive damages totalling thousands and thousands of {dollars}.
The jury has additionally watched prolonged excerpts from an October videotaped deposition wherein Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever actually realizing her.
With out Trump’s testimony, attorneys had been scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, with deliberations prone to start on Tuesday.
After plaintiffs rested their case Thursday, Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina instantly rested the defence case as nicely with out calling any witnesses. He didn’t request further time for Trump to resolve to testify. Tacopina declined to remark to the Related Press information company after the deadline handed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump additional time to vary his thoughts and request to testify, although the choose didn’t promise he would grant such a request to reopen the defence case so Trump may take the stand.
On the time, Kaplan famous that he had heard about information reviews Thursday wherein Trump instructed reporters whereas visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Eire, that he would “most likely attend” the trial. Trump additionally criticised Kaplan, a Invoice Clinton appointee, as an “extraordinarily hostile” and “tough choose” who “doesn’t like me very a lot”.
On the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in early 1996 after they met on the entrance of the midtown Manhattan division retailer Bergdorf Goodman.
She mentioned the encounter started as a enjoyable and flirtatious outing as Trump coaxed her into serving to him store for a present for one more girl. She mentioned they ended up within the retailer’s desolate lingerie part, the place they teased one another to attempt on a see-through bodysuit.
As Carroll recalled it, laughter accompanied them right into a dressing room the place Trump grew to become violent, slamming her up in opposition to a wall, pulling apart her tights and raping her earlier than she kneed him and fled the shop.
In his deposition, Trump mentioned Carroll made it up. He known as it “a false, disgusting lie” delivered by a “nut job” attempting to stoke gross sales of her ebook.
He additionally repeated feedback he made in statements that she was not his “sort”.
“She’s not my sort and that’s 100% true,” he mentioned.
And he repeated his claims in a 2005 “Entry Hollywood” video wherein he bragged that males who’re celebrities can seize ladies by the genitals with out asking.
“Traditionally that’s true with stars,” he mentioned.
Carroll sued Trump in November, minutes after New York state enacted a legislation permitting grownup sexual assault victims to sue others even when the assaults occurred a long time earlier.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, wrote a letter to the choose Sunday to complain that Trump nonetheless has not eliminated April 26 posts on his social media community wherein he known as Carroll’s allegations “a made up SCAM.” And she or he famous that he repeated disparaging remarks in regards to the trial three days in the past in Eire.
After the April 26 postings on Fact Social, Decide Kaplan, who will not be associated to Carroll’s lawyer, mentioned Trump’s feedback had been “extremely inappropriate” and expressed concern that Trump was attempting to speak to the jury “about stuff that has no enterprise being spoken about”.
