Trump can’t exclude ‘Access Hollywood’ tape from rape accuser’s trial

[ad_1]

NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Friday rejected Donald Trump’s effort to exclude an “Access Hollywood” tape in which he makes vulgar comments about women from a lawsuit in defamation writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims the former president raped her in the mid-1990s.

Carroll sought to introduce an excerpt from the tape, recorded in 2005 and in which Trump bragged about forcing himself on women, as evidence that Trump had a penchant for sexual assaults comparable to him.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said that while evidence of propensity is generally not admissible, a reasonable jury could find that Trump admitted on the tape “that he has in fact had genital contact in the past without their consent, or that he had attempted to do so.”

Trump has denied raping Carroll. His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Carroll’s attorneys, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.

Latest Updates

See 2 more stories

The 23-page ruling comes in the first of two defamation lawsuits filed by Carroll over his alleged encounter with Trump in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.

Carroll accused Trump in 2019 after he told a White House reporter that he didn’t know Carroll, that he wasn’t his type, and that he made up the rape claim to sell his memoir. He sued again in 2022 after Trump repeated his denials online.

In the “Access Hollywood” excerpt, Trump graphically described his unsuccessful attempt to have sex with a married woman, and described himself as attracted to beautiful women.

“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just a kiss. I didn’t even wait. And when you’re a hero they let you do it,” Trump said. “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

The tape was released in October 2016 and threatened to increase Trump’s run for the White House. He defeated Hillary Clinton the following month to become president.

Kaplan also rejected Trump’s bid to exclude testimony from two other women who claimed he sexually assaulted them.

One, Jessica Leeds, said Trump groped her while sitting next to her on a 1979 flight to New York from Texas.

Another, Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump assaulted her in 2005 at her Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, where she had traveled to interview him and his wife, Melania, for People magazine.

Trump has denied that both incidents happened.

Carroll’s second lawsuit also includes a battery claim under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which allows victims of sexual abuse to sue their attackers even after statutes of limitations have run out. A trial is scheduled for April 25.

The cases are Carroll v. Trump, US District Court, Southern District of New York, Nos. 20-00731 and 22-10016.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

[ad_2]