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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.
Donald Trump’s lawyers said Wednesday that they will not call witnesses in the New York civil court arising from the writer E. Jean Carroll’s claims that the former US president raped her in the mid-1990s.
Trump’s attorney Joseph Tacopina said he decided not to pursue a defense case after learning that health problems prevented the expert witness, a psychiatrist, from testifying. Tacopina previously announced that Trump would not testify in court, in federal court in Manhattan.
Later in the day, well-known 2005 Access Hollywood A video in which Trump bragged about grabbing women sexually without asking was played for the jury, along with excerpts from Trump’s videotaped deposition.
Carroll testified last week that Trump was raped after she accompanied him to a department store fitting room in 1996.
Trump, who is considered the front runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said in an October 2022 deposition that the alleged rape in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City decades ago did not happen.
“It’s the most ridiculous and disgusting story,” Trump said in the video, shaking his head at the conference table as Carroll’s lawyer handed him the document. “It’s just made up.”
Although footage of the deposition was not released, portions of the transcript have been made public.
‘I tried to push him away’
Also, on Wednesday, People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff testified that Trump forced her to kiss him against her will when she showed him at his Florida home for a 2005 article about his first wedding anniversary with Melania Trump.
Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully challenged the 2005 video and Stoynoff’s testimony before the start of the trial. Stoynoff testified that he was “horrified” when the tape was made public just weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
“The scary part for me is that I’m worried, because I didn’t say anything at the time, other women were hurt by him so I have to regret it,” she said.
Stoynoff became emotional as soon as the topic was raised from a December 2005 trip to interview Trump and Melania at their Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Fla., where she said Trump snuck into her room alone and began kissing her after saying he wanted to. to show him the great room.
He took out a tissue as he began to describe the encounter which he said lasted a few minutes.
Stoynoff, a Canadian, said he entered the first room, “thinking, ‘Wow, the room is amazing, I wonder what he wants to show me.'”
Then, she recalled, the door closed behind her, and Trump soon “had his hand on my shoulder, pushed me against the wall and started kissing me.”
“I tried to push him,” Stoynoff said. He said he doesn’t remember anything he said to prompt the attack, and he doesn’t remember anything Trump said either.
“He came at me again, and I tried to drive him again. He kissed me and, you know, fought me,” she recalled.
He said he was “confused and shocked” but could not speak or scream. “Not a word came out of me.”
The encounter ended, Stoynoff said, when a butler entered the room and “he stopped doing what he was doing.”
After Stoynoff and Trump were led to the seating area to wait for Melania, who was changing, Trump told Stoynoff a few things, including telling her not to forget that Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife, had once bragged to the tabloids that Trump was her best type. never been.
Trump has denied ever trying to kiss Stoynoff.
The case could go to a jury as early as next week
Stoynoff’s testimony came two days after Jessica Leeds testified that Trump grabbed her breast and tried to put his hand up her skirt while sitting next to her on an airplane in the late 1970s.
Trump, who has denied ever knowing Carroll, has not attended the trial, and the lawyers said they will not call witnesses after the lawyers for Carroll rest their case, which is expected to happen on Friday.
Trump said the claims were a politically motivated attempt to damage his reputation and deny him the White House.
Her attorney attacked Carroll’s credibility through exhaustive cross-examination, questioning why she didn’t scream for help during the alleged attack and why she never went to the police.
Carroll has not spoken publicly about Trump’s claims in 17 years. But in her 2019 memoir, she described how a frequent encounter with Trump at a store in the spring of 1996 ended in violence when Trump punched her in the dressing room after they challenged each other to try on lingerie.
A psychologist testifying on Carroll’s behalf testified Wednesday that most rape victims remain silent and blame themselves.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said closing arguments are likely to happen Friday, and the jury will get the case Friday.
Support is available to anyone who has been sexually assaulted. You can access crisis lines and local support services through this Government of Canada website or the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you are in immediate danger or fear for the safety of yourself or others around you, call 911.
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