2023-04-27 02:20:17
- Writing
- BBC News World
image source, Getty Images
The trial began on Tuesday.
Columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused former US President Donald Trump of raping her, said she had filed the lawsuit to try to get her life back.
Carroll, 79, said at the civil trial for rape and defamation that he has not been able to have a romantic life since the alleged assault, which he maintains occurred in a luxury store in Manhattan in the 1990s.
Trump denies the accusation.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he lied and said it didn’t happen,” Carroll said in New York federal court on Wednesday. “He lied and ruined my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.”
Carroll, a former advice columnist for the magazine Elletestified that the encounter with Trump initially began with a flirty joke after he approached her in a store and asked if she could help him buy a gift for a friend.
The plaintiff said the jokes quickly took a turn when Trump asked her to try on a piece of lingerie and followed her into a dressing room.
Once inside, she claimed, he closed the door, pinned her against the wall and raped her.
“As I sit here today, I can still feel it,” she said in court.
image source, AFP
Carroll testified Wednesday in federal court in New York.
According to his account, Carroll tried to push Trump away, saying that it was clear that he did not want it to happen. The “extremely painful” encounter was over in minutes and he quickly left the department store, he added.
Since then, he has felt guilty about his decision to enter the fitting room, he argued.
At the start of the trial Tuesday in New York, Trump’s lawyer dismissed the allegation as implausible.
“It all comes down to: do you believe in the unbelievable?” attorney Joe Tacopina told the jury of six men and three women in his plea.
In a series of posts on his Truth Social social network Wednesday, Trump called the case a “false and fraudulent story” and questioned the plaintiff.
“She didn’t scream? No witnesses? No one saw this?” he wrote.
The details of the case
Caroll outlined the details of what she says happened to Trump in her book “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal,” in which she says she did not report the alleged attack at the time because a friend told her she had no chance of beat the tycoon in court.
More than a dozen women have previously made allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump, accusations he denies.
As Carroll explains in his book, the meeting with Trump took place at the end of 1995 or early 1996in the exclusive Bergdorf Goodman storeIn New York.
image source, Getty Images
Trump denies the allegations.
Carroll says in the book that she recognized the then-to-be president and told him “You’re the real estate mogul,” and that he told her he was buying a gift for “a girl.”
The columnist maintains that Trump knew that she was having an advice segment on NBC at the time and that the two began joking around, encouraging each other to try on some lingerie.
Carroll alleges that they then went into a fitting room, and that is where she claims the rape occurred.
So much Trump and Carroll were in their 50s at the time, and he was married to actress Marla Maples.
Carroll says she told two friends about the alleged incident, and one of them advised her to go to the police.
But the other advised her not to tell anyone. “Forget it! She has 200 lawyers. She’ll bury you,” she claims that she warned him.
Focus on the incident
Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, maintained Tuesday that “fear and shame” kept her client silent about the incident for years.
He said witnesses will testify at the trial to verify his version, including two Bergdorf Goodman employees, his sister and two women who also claim they were assaulted by Trump.
It is unclear if the former president will testify in person. Carroll’s lawyers have said they do not plan to call him as a witness.
image source, Getty Images
About twenty women accuse Trump of sexual assault.
On Tuesday, the judge ordered Trump’s team to clarify whether he will attend parts of the trial, because if he does, security personnel need time to prepare.
Trump’s lawyers have focused on the circumstances surrounding the alleged attack and asked jurors how such a crime could have gone undetected in a typically bustling New York City store.
According to attorney Tacopina, this “is not credible.”
Although this is a civil and not a criminal trial, the stakes are high for Trump. If Carroll wins the trial, it would be the first time Trump has been held legally responsible for a sexual assault, after more than twenty charges have been filed against him.
Trump has said in the past that Carroll fabricated his story to gain publicity.
The former columnist is demanding compensation for her pain and suffering, lasting psychological damage and invasion of her privacy.
image source, Getty Images
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