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WARNING: This article contains details and allegations of sexual assault and may affect people who have experienced sexual assault or know someone who has been affected.
Closing arguments are expected Monday after former US president Donald Trump turned down his last chance to testify in a civil trial in which a longtime advice columnist accused him of raping her in a luxury store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
Trump, the Republican presidential candidate in 2024, was given until 5 p.m. ET Sunday by US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request to testify. There is no such submission.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump extra time to change his mind and request to testify, although the judge did not promise to grant the request to reopen the defense’s case to allow Trump to stand.
Kaplan noted that he had heard about news reports on Thursday that Trump had told reporters during a visit to a golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably attend” the hearing.
“I’m going to come back early because a woman made a statement that’s totally false, it’s false,” Trump said in Ireland.
Trump was absent during the two-week Manhattan trial where writer E. Jean Carroll testified for days, repeating the sexual assault claims she first made public in her 2019 memoir.
Trump is not required to attend. He left for a trip to Europe after the start of the trial, the date of which had been known for several weeks.
Carroll is seeking damages and punitive damages in the millions of dollars.
Jury deliberations are expected to take place later this week.
Violent encounters, Carroll said
On the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in the spring of 1996 – she has not been sure of the exact date – after they met at the entrance of the midtown Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman.
She said the meeting started as a fun and flirtatious outing as Trump coaxed her into helping him shop for gifts for another woman. She said they ended up in the store’s quiet lingerie section, where they teased each other to try on the see-through bodysuit.
As Carroll recalled, laughter followed her into the dressing room where Trump became violent, slamming her against a wall, removing her panties and raping her before she got down on her knees and fled the store.
Jurors have also watched lengthy excerpts from a videotaped October deposition in which Trump strongly denied raping Carroll or ever knowing about her.
In his deposition, Trump said Carroll made it up. He called it a “disgusting lie” fed by “nut jobs” trying to sell his book.
He also repeated the comments he made in the statement that he was not “the type”.
“He’s not my type and that’s 100 percent true,” he said.
repeat Access Hollywood statement
And he repeated that claim in 2005 Access Hollywood a video in which he boasts that a man who is a celebrity can grab a woman by the genitals without asking.
“History is right with the stars,” he said.
“If you look at it over the last million years, it’s probably true,” he said. “Not always, but generally true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”
When in Access Hollywood The recording came to light in October 2016, Trump downplayed it during the presidential debate as “a loud locker room, private conversation that took place many years ago.”
Carroll sued Trump in November, minutes after New York state passed a law allowing adult sexual assault victims to sue others even if the assault happened decades earlier.
Two women were also invited to testify by Carroll’s team about their own accusations, including Canadian journalist Natasha Stoynoff, who testified that in 2005 Trump forced her to kiss him against her will when he showed her at his Florida home while she was on assignment for People magazine.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, wrote a letter to the judge Sunday to complain that Trump still hasn’t removed an April 26 post on the social media network that Carroll’s accusations were a “fabricated SCAM.” And he noted that he repeated his disrespectful remarks about the trial three days ago in Ireland.
After an April 26 post on Truth Social, Judge Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s attorney, said Trump’s comments were “inappropriate” and expressed concern that Trump was trying to communicate with jurors “about things he had no business talking about. .”
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll did.
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