NY. A civil trial against former President Donald Trump, accused of raping a once prominent American columnist three decades ago, began Tuesday with jury selection in a New York court.
Jean Carroll, 79, says Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York store and then defamed her when she publicly accused him years later.
Trump, who is facing multiple legal problems that threaten to derail his bid for a second term at the White House, denies the allegations.
The start of the civil trial comes just weeks after his arraignment on criminal charges related to a payment of money to a porn star before the 2016 election in exchange for silence.
Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine, says she was raped by Trump in the changing room of the luxury Bergdorf Goodman store in New York in the mid-1990s.
She said the attack came after Trump asked her for advice on making a purchase.
Carroll first made the accusation in a passage from his book published by New York Magazine in 2019.
Trump then responded that he never met Carroll, that she was not his “type” and that he was “totally lying.”
Carroll first sued Trump for defamation in 2019 but was unable to include the rape charge because the time to file had expired.
But a new law that went into effect last year in New York allows victims of sexual assault to be compensated decades after they occurred.
Carroll’s lawyers then filed a new lawsuit accusing Trump of gross mistreatment “when he forcibly groped her and raped her.”
Trump is also accused of defamation for referring to Carroll as a con artist.
The civil lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, psychological damage, pain and suffering, loss of dignity and damage to his reputation.
Trump is not expected to comment. Carroll’s lawyers said they do not plan to call him as a witness.
The trial is estimated to last one to two weeks.
Trump became the first sitting and former president to be criminally charged when he was briefly detained earlier this month in the porn star case.
He is also being investigated for allegedly seeking to overturn his 2020 election loss in the southern state of Georgia, mishandling secret documents taken from the White House and being implicated in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
2023-04-25 18:24:51
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