Donald Trump’s civil rape case goes to trial in Manhattan

[ad_1]

NEW YORK Attorneys for former President Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll, the woman who accused him of raping her in an upscale Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, presented conflicting accounts about whether what did or didn’t happen to a jury on Tuesday , the first day of the trial in Carroll’s civil case against Trump.

Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, began his opening presentation by clearly telling the story at the heart of Carroll’s allegations. Crowley described Trump locking Carroll in a locker room, and forcing her to have sex, even though she was resisting. Crowley said now, nearly three decades later, Carroll is trying to hold Trump accountable for what he did to him in that dressing room and “restore his good name.”

There was no video or forensic evidence to support Carroll’s rape claim, nor was Carroll certain whether the attack took place in 1995 or 1996. But Crowley told jurors it wasn’t a “he said, she said” case, as Carroll’s case the allegations will be supported by the testimony of two of Carroll’s friends who he said shortly after the alleged assault, with key details supported by two witnesses who worked at Bergdorf Goodman’s.

In his opening statement, Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina attacked each element of the allegations, starting with Carroll’s character, saying he was motivated by money and fame. “You can’t let him profit from his abuse of this process and his attempts to deceive you,” Tacopina said, adding that her allegations undermine “real rape victims.” He said Carroll’s inability to remember the month or even the year of the alleged assault makes it impossible for Trump to provide an alibi.

Trump is accused of battery and defamation in the suit, which was filed late last year. Carroll has a separate civil suit against Trump for defamation alone, which did not go to trial.

The jury in the case is anonymous, for security reasons. The six men and three women will be identified only by the numbers assigned to them, and will arrive and depart daily by car, and will be dropped off at unspecified drop-off points.

Most of Tuesday morning was taken up by jury selection. But even before prospective jurors were questioned, Judge Lewis Kaplan of New York’s federal district court pointedly advised both legal teams to advise their clients and witnesses to avoid making statements “likely to incite violence or civil disorder,” and warned against “making comments or engaging in conduct that has the potential to endanger the safety or welfare of any individual or the rule of law, especially as it applies to criminal proceedings this courtroom.”

Trump has been known to attack judges and lawyers, and Carroll himself, on social media.

In addition to Carroll’s friends and Bergdorf’s former staffers, Carroll’s lawyers said they will call to the stand two women who say Trump made aggressive and unwanted sexual advances, Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds. . They will also show excerpts from the “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump boasts about his sexual conquests, in vulgar terms.

At the time it was released, Trump dismissed the tape as “locker room talk,” And Trump’s attorney Tacopina told jurors what it was: “it’s not an admission of anything specific, ” he says.

Tacopina isn’t saying whether Trump will come to his defense; otherwise, the defense team has only one witness, Dr. Edgar Nace, a psychiatrist.

While Crowley remained calm as he laid out Carroll’s statements, Tacopina at times seemed downright angry, his hands gripping the lectern and his voice rising.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

[ad_2]