New York (AP) – After the pleas in the civil lawsuit for rape against former US President Donald Trump, the twelve jurors will now advise on a verdict.
During the closing speeches, the lawyer for the author Jean Carroll repeated the accusation that Trump raped her in a New York luxury department store in the mid-1990s: “He knows what he did”. Trump’s lawyer rejected this again. The allegations are “unimaginable” and “unbelievable”. Trump was already prominent as a real estate entrepreneur at this point, so such an act would not have gone unnoticed.
Carroll is demanding compensation from Trump for assault and defamation. The now 79-year-old had testified that she was no longer able to have romantic relationships after the incident. The criminal allegations are statute-barred, but under civil law Carroll was free to file a lawsuit. Trump, who wants to become president again in 2024 and is applying for the Republican nomination, did not personally travel to the trial.
An old audio recording from 2005 also played a role in the arguments of Carroll’s lawyers, in which Trump made lewd and derogatory statements about women – and about the fact that as a star you could also touch women on their genitals if you wanted to. This was not – as portrayed by Trump – talk among men, but a confession, the way he behaved. He did the same with Carroll.
Judge Lewis Kaplan is scheduled to send the jurors to their deliberations today. Then they have to make a unanimous decision to come to a verdict.
2023-05-09 00:35:46
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