Trump calls rape claim ‘ridiculous’ in video testimony in civil trial

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May 3 (Reuters) – Donald Trump denied raping writer E. Jean Carroll in a deposition video played on Wednesday for a Manhattan federal jury, as the former U.S. president sought to defend himself in a civil proceedings without testifying in person.

Trump, 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.

This is the most ridiculous, disgusting story, Trump said in the video, leaning over a conference table as the Carrolls’ lawyers showed him the documents. It just did.

Although the deposition footage has not been released, portions of the transcript have been filed with the public.

Trump will not testify in person, and his legal team told US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday that they will not call any witnesses.

The trial is in its sixth day and is expected to continue next week.

Carrolls’ civil suit for battery and defamation alleges that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s and then tarred her reputation by claiming in an October 2022 post on her Truth Social platform that the former Elle magazine advice columnist case is a Hoax and a lie.

Carroll said during three days of testimony and pointed out on cross-examination that Trump slammed her against a wall in 1995 or 1996, inserted his fingers into her genitalia and then inserted her penis.

Denying the allegations, Trump accused Carroll of fabricating the story to drive sales of a 2019 memoir in which he made his claims public.

Trump did not attend the trial.

“I hear we’re doing very well in New York,” Trump said Wednesday when asked why he wasn’t in court. He spoke to reporters in Scotland where he was playing golf.

The trial also featured testimony from two women who said Trump sexually assaulted them decades ago.

Former People magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff told jurors Wednesday that Trump cornered her at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in 2005 and forcibly kissed her for several minutes until a butler broke up the alleged affair. – attack.

It really had a profound effect on me, Stoynoff said through tears, describing the deep shame and self-doubt she said she felt after the encounter.

Another woman, Jessica Leeds, testified Tuesday that Trump kissed her, groped her and put his hand up her skirt on a flight in 1979.

Reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Howard Goller

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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