Trump Refuses Last Chance to Testify in Civil Trial on Rape Allegation

Without Trump’s testimony, the lawyers were scheduled to present closing arguments Monday, with deliberations likely to begin Tuesday.

Former President Donald Trump turned down his last chance Sunday to testify in a civil trial in which an advice columnist accused him of raping her in the dressing room of a New York luxury store in 1996.

Trump, the 2024 Republican candidate for president, was given until 5 p.m. Sunday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was presented.

It was not a surprise. Trump failed to appear once during the two-week trial in Manhattan, where writer E. Jean Carroll testified over several days, repeating claims she first made publicly in a 2019 memoir. She is seeking compensatory damages and penalties totaling millions of dollars.

The jury also saw lengthy excerpts from a videotaped deposition in October in which Trump vehemently denied that he raped Carroll or actually knew her.

Without Trump’s testimony, the lawyers were scheduled to present closing arguments Monday, with deliberations likely to begin Tuesday.

Also read Lawyer questions woman who accuses Trump of raping her

After prosecutors rested their case on Thursday, Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, immediately rested the defense’s case as well without calling any witnesses. He did not request additional time for Trump to decide to testify. Tacopina declined to comment in an email after he expired on Sunday.

On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump more time to change his mind and request to testify, though the judge did not promise to grant such a request to reopen the defense’s case so Trump could take the stand.

At the time, Kaplan noted that he had heard about news reports Thursday in which Trump told reporters while visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably attend” the trial. Trump also criticized Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, as an “extremely hostile” and “harsh” judge who “doesn’t like me very much.”

On the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in the spring of 1996 after meeting at the entrance to the Bergdorf Goodman department store in midtown Manhattan.

She said the encounter started as a fun and flirty outing when Trump convinced her to help him buy a gift for another woman. She said they ended up in the desolate lingerie section of the store, where they taunted each other into trying on see-through bodysuits.

As Carroll recalled, the laughter accompanied them to a dressing room where Trump became violent, slamming her against a wall, removing her stockings and raping her before she kneed him and fled the store.

In his statement, Trump said that Carroll made it up. He called it “a disgusting false lie” delivered by a “crackpot” who was trying to boost sales of his book.

He also repeated comments he made in statements that she was not his “type.”

“She’s not my type and that’s 100% true,” he said.

And he repeated his claims in a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which he bragged that famous men can grab women by the genitals without asking.

“Historically, that’s true with stars,” he said.

Carroll sued Trump in November, minutes after New York state enacted a law allowing adult victims of sexual assault to sue others even if the attacks occurred decades earlier.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, wrote a letter to the judge on Sunday to complain that Trump has yet to remove April 26 posts on his social network calling Carroll’s allegations “a made-up scam.” And she pointed out that she repeated derogatory comments about the trial three days ago in Ireland.

After the April 26 posts on Truth Social, Judge Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s attorney, called Trump’s comments “highly inappropriate” and expressed concern that Trump was trying to communicate to the jury “about things that are not talked about.” .”

The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

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