On the same day that the president of the United States, Joe Biden, showed off his candidacy for re-election at a union congress, his predecessor and possible rival in 2024, Donald Trump, was pending a rape trial in Manhattan (New York). The former president has not attended the first session, but it is not ruled out that he will testify. At the moment, two totally opposite versions have been presented: the accusation of rape by the lawyers of the columnist Elizabeth Jean Carroll and the denial of the facts by Trump’s representatives.
The case is complicated because the alleged rape dates back 30 years. E. Jean Carroll accused Trump in 2019 of an alleged rape suffered in the 1990s and last November filed a lawsuit against the former president, taking advantage of the entry into force of a new state law, the Adult Survivors Act, which allows women to victims of sexual violence sue for attacks that occurred decades ago.
This is a civil lawsuit, not a criminal one. Trump can’t go to jail. The writer seeks unquantified compensation for compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering, psychological damage, loss of dignity and damage to reputation.
This Tuesday the jury has been selected and the lawyers have presented their initial arguments. Shawn Crowley, the writer’s lawyer, has assured that E. Jean Carroll will testify during the trial that what happened in a few minutes in a department store changing room in 1996 “was going to change her life forever.” “Filled with fear and shame, she kept silent for decades. Over time, however, silence became impossible,” Crowley said, according to the intervention collected by AP.
And when Carroll broke that silence in a 2019 memoir, the then-president “used the most powerful platform on Earth to lie about what he had done, attack Ms. Carroll’s integrity, and insult her appearance.” “This case is Mrs. Carroll’s opportunity to clear her name, to do justice,” he added.
The case resumes this Wednesday and it is likely that the writer herself will already give a statement. Among the plaintiffs’ witnesses are two people who were on the payroll of the department store, the plaintiff’s sister, her former boss and two other women who have accused Trump of abusing them: Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds. The former president has been able to resist all kinds of accusations of abuse, extramarital affairs and even recordings of degrading comments towards women without this having made a dent in the majority of his followers.
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Carroll recounted in his book What do we need men for? a humble proposal that Trump had raped her in the changing rooms of a luxury department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996. The writer recounted that she ran into Trump by chance in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York and he asked her for help finding a gift for a women. The columnist was presenting the television program at that time Ask E.Jean, inspired by his famous magazine column Elle, a successful sexual and sentimental office.
According to her version, Trump took her first to the handbags section, then to the hat section and finally to the lingerie section. The tycoon grabbed a bodysuit grayish lilac in color, he asked her to try it on and accompanied her. “The moment the changing room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head pretty hard, and puts his mouth against my lips. I’m so shocked that she pushes him back and I start laughing. He grabs both my arms, pins me against the wall with his shoulders, forces his hands under my dress and pulls down my stockings. I am amazed by what I am going to write: I keep laughing. The next moment (…) he pulls down his fly and, forcing his fingers into my private part, pushes his penis into me halfway, or completely, I’m not sure”. After a fight between them, she managed to escape and run away.
Trump, who was president when the book was published, responded to the allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll “wasn’t his type.” His comments prompted Carroll to file a defamation suit against him, but that suit became embroiled in court.
The former president said that she was a “nutty” who had made up the rape claim to sell her book. The former president’s defense attorney, Joe Tacopina, told jurors on Tuesday that the accusation is implausible and lacking in evidence. The lawyer maintains that Carroll has sued for money, status and political reasons.
The lawyer has urged the jurors in his opening statement to put aside any animosity they may have towards the former president. “They can hate Donald Trump. No problem. But there is a secret time and place for that. It is called a ballot box in an election. It is not here, in a court of law,” Tacopina said in words collected by AP. “No one is above the law, but no one is below it,” he added. “It all comes down to: Do you believe the unbelievable?” He asked in his opening statement.
The jury members are six men and three women whose names are withheld and who range in age from 26 to 66. They include a concierge, a physical therapist, and people who work in security, health care, a library, a Institute…
The trial comes weeks after Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts in a criminal case involving burying payments for alleged extramarital sex, including one with porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Carroll already acknowledged when publishing the book that he did not report what happened to the police and that he has no proof. Yes, she told it, as she explained then, to two friends, who confirmed her version. Her first friend, a journalist, begged her to go to the police and offered to accompany her. The second, also a journalist, recommended that she not tell anyone. “Forget it! She has 200 lawyers. She will bury you,” she told him.
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