NEW YORK — Closing arguments will begin Friday in the defamation case against Donald Trump, a day after the former president left a New York courtroom furious that he had not been given a chance to refute E.’s sexual abuse allegations. Jean Carroll.
The lawyers will be able to summarize their cases before nine jurors who will begin deliberating later in the day whether Carroll, a former columnist, is entitled to more than the $5 million she was awarded in a separate trial last year.
The lawyers’ final comments come a day after Trump managed to circumvent a federal judge’s rules that severely limited what he could say during his turn on the witness stand, which ended up lasting just 3 minutes.
“She said something that I considered a false accusation,” Trump said, later adding: “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency.” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ordered the jury to ignore both observations.
Last May, a different jury concluded that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in the spring of 1996 in the locker room of an upscale department store in Manhattan. He also found that he defamed her in 2022 by claiming that she made up her accusation to sell her memoirs.
Trump, the Republican front-runner in this year’s presidential election, has long regretted his decision not to testify in that trial, blaming his lawyers for their poor advice.
The jury in this new trial has been told that it is there for a limited purpose.
Kaplan will instruct jurors on the law before deliberating, telling them they must accept the verdict reached last year and only determine whether additional damages are owed for statements Trump made in June 2019 while he was president. The claims had been delayed for years due to court appeals.
Carroll’s attorneys are seeking more than $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, has argued against damages, saying that Carroll’s association with Trump had given him the fame he craved and that the death threats he received cannot be attributed to Trump’s comments. Trump.
Carroll, 80, testified at last year’s trial that she had a chance encounter with Trump at a Bergdorf Goodman store that was flirtatious and lighthearted until Trump cornered her in a fitting room. Her claim that Trump raped her was rejected by the jury last year, although she agreed that she was sexually assaulted.
Last week, Carroll testified that her career was shattered by Trump’s statements about her claims over the past five years, most recently during the presidential campaign. He said he bought bullets for a gun he inherited from his father and installed an electronic fence around his house.
On Thursday, Trump testified that he stood by “100%” of comments he made in an October 2002 statement in which he denied Carroll’s allegations, calling her “sick” and “crazy.”
Kaplan intends to tell jurors Friday that last year’s jury found that Trump had digitally penetrated Carroll at the department store, but the same jury did not find that he had raped her, according to how rape is defined in the law. of New York State.
Trump attorney Michael Madaio argued at a conference Thursday between attorneys and the judge that Kaplan should not tell the jury specifically what sexual abuse Carroll had alleged because it was “completely unnecessary and inflammatory.”
The judge rejected the argument.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
2024-01-26 14:37:38
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