NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump rejected his final probability Sunday to testify at a civil trial the place an established 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 once given till 5 p.m. Sunday through U.S. District Pass judgement on Lewis A. Kaplan to document a request to testify. Not anything was once filed.
It was once now not a marvel. Trump has now not proven up as soon as throughout the two-week New york trial the place creator 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 totaling hundreds of thousands of bucks.
The jury has additionally watched long excerpts from an October videotaped deposition during which Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever actually realizing her.
With out Trump’s testimony, legal professionals have been scheduled to make remaining arguments Monday, with deliberations more likely to start on Tuesday.
After plaintiffs rested their case Thursday, Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina right away rested the protection case as neatly with out calling any witnesses. He didn’t request overtime for Trump to come to a decision to testify. Tacopina declined in an electronic mail to remark after the time limit handed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump overtime to switch his thoughts and request to testify, despite the fact that the pass judgement on didn’t promise he would grant one of these request to reopen the protection case so Trump may just take the stand.
On the time, Kaplan famous that he’d heard about information stories Thursday during which Trump instructed newshounds whilst visiting his golfing route in Doonbeg, Eire, that he would “most probably attend” the trial. Trump additionally criticized Kaplan, a Invoice Clinton appointee, as an “extraordinarily adversarial” and “tough pass judgement on” who “doesn’t like me very a lot.”
At the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in spring 1996 when they met on the front of the midtown New york division retailer Bergdorf Goodman.
She mentioned the stumble upon started as a a laugh and flirtatious trip as Trump coaxed her into serving to him store for a present for every other girl. She mentioned they ended up within the retailer’s desolate underwear segment, the place they teased every different to check out on a see-through bodysuit.
As Carroll recalled it, laughter accompanied them right into a dressing room the place Trump was violent, slamming her up in opposition to a wall, pulling apart her tights and raping her ahead of she kneed him and fled the shop.
In his deposition, Trump mentioned Carroll made it up. He referred to as it “a false, disgusting lie” delivered through a “nut process” who was once looking to stoke gross sales of her e book.
He additionally repeated feedback he made in statements that she was once now not his “kind.”
“She’s now not my kind and that’s 100% true,” he mentioned.
And he repeated his claims in a 2005 “Get entry to Hollywood” video during which he bragged that males who’re celebrities can seize ladies through the genitals with out asking.
“Traditionally that’s true with stars,” he mentioned.
Carroll sued Trump in November, mins after New York state enacted a legislation permitting grownup sexual attack sufferers to sue others although the assaults took place many years previous.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, wrote a letter to the pass judgement on Sunday to whinge that Trump nonetheless has now not got rid of April 26 posts on his social media community during which he referred to as Carroll’s allegations “a made up SCAM.” And he or she famous that he repeated disparaging remarks in regards to the trial 3 days in the past in Eire.
After the April 26 postings on Reality Social, Pass judgement on Kaplan, who isn’t associated with Carroll’s attorney, mentioned Trump’s feedback have been “extremely beside the point” and expressed worry that Trump was once looking to keep in touch to the jury “about stuff that has no trade being spoken about.”
The Related Press usually does now not identify individuals who say they have got been sexually assaulted until they arrive ahead publicly, as Carroll has achieved.
