A trial is set to begin Tuesday on E. Jean Carroll’s civil claim that Donald Trump raped her in a New York City department store in the 1990s — but it’s unclear whether the former president will show up to testify in his defense.
Carroll, a magazine writer and columnist, alleges the attack took place in a Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, when the “playful banter” she’d been engaged with the businessman took a “dark turn.” She alleges in her lawsuit that Trump “seized” her, “forced her up against a dressing room wall, pinned her in place with his shoulder, and raped her.”
Trump has called her allegations “a con job,” a “hoax” and “a complete scam,” which led Carroll to sue him for defamation. Trump maintains his comments aren’t defamatory and are the truth.
“It’s ridiculous” to think an incident like that could happen in a department store, he said at his deposition in the case, according to court filings. “So I say that sometimes to people. And I say can you imagine this? The concept of this? And it’s me. I — you know, a very famous person. It’s a disgrace. Frankly it’s a disgrace that something like that can be brought.”
Jury selection is set to begin Tuesday morning in federal court in lower Manhattan — just blocks from where Trump was arraigned earlier this month on criminal charges of falsifying business records in a separate case involving hush money payments to women alleging affairs with him; Trump has pleaded not guilty to those charges and has denied those affairs and any wrongdoing.
Trump sat for his videotaped deposition in the Carroll case in October, which her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in court filings that she plans to use at trial.
It’s unclear whether Trump, one of only two witnesses listed for the defense, will testify in person or rely on the deposition because his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, was noncommittal in a court filing last week about whether the former president would attend the proceedings.
Kaplan and Tacopina declined to comment on the case.
Questions for potential jurors
The judge presiding over the case, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, is using an anonymous jury for the trial, an unusual move for a civil trial but one he said is necessary.
“If jurors’ identities were disclosed, there would be a strong likelihood of unwanted media attention to the jurors, influence attempts, and/or of harassment or worse of jurors by supporters of Mr. Trump,” the judge wrote in a decision last month.
In court filings, lawyers for Trump and Carroll laid out some of the questions they want the judge to ask prospective jurors.
Trump’s suggestions include, “Are you familiar with the slogan #believe women,” and, “Do you agree with it?” “Do you think that the #metoo movement has gone too far?”
Another suggestion was, “Do you believe that people falsely accuse others of sexual assault? Does that happen?”
They also want prospective jurors to be asked about their opinions of Trump as president, adding, “If you have negative views, are those strongly held beliefs?”
Questions suggested by Carroll’s attorneys include whether they follow Trump on social media, have ever attended one of his rallies or believe the 2020 election results were illegitimate.
Another asks, “Is there anyone who would have trouble believing a victim of sexual misconduct if that victim chose not to seek immediate medical or other assistance?”
In her court filing, Carroll said she told two friends about the attack, which she alleges happened in 1995 or 1996 and lasted two to three minutes. She said she called one immediately afterward and the other within days. The latter friend warned her not to tell anyone else about it because “disaster would ensue,” the suit says.
“Forget it! He has two hundred lawyers. He’ll bury you,” Carroll quoted the friend as saying.
Carroll said she heeded the advice because she “knew how brutal and dangerous Trump could be.”
“Carroll did not mention the rape again for over twenty years. She did not want to be seen — or to see herself — as a victim of sexual assault,” according to the suit.
The lawsuit states that position was bolstered when other women accused Trump of sexual misconduct during the 2016 election and he denied their accusations “while also savaging their reputations and insulting their appearance.” She said she was also worried that coming forward “might make Trump more popular in states like Indiana” since “his electoral fortunes had steadily improved despite credible allegations of sexual abuse.”
The suit goes on to say that her thinking began to change after a New York Times story on rape allegations against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein helped set off the #MeToo movement.
She said she decided to open up about the alleged incident as a part of a book she’d been working on called “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal.”
Trump’s denials
After an excerpt of the book was published in New York Magazine in June 2019, then-President Trump issued a statement saying he’d “never met this person in my life.”
“She is trying to sell a new book — that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section,” the statement said. “Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda.”
Carroll then sued Trump for defamation, but the case got stalled in an appeal over whether Trump was immune from liability because he was president at the time.
She filed suit in the case that’s now going to trial last year, after Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law that opened a one-year window for adult victims of sexual offenses to file civil suits, even if the statute of limitations on their claim had expired, as it had for Carroll.
She’s seeking unspecified money damages for the alleged rape and defamation for comments Trump made about her on his social media website Truth Social after leaving the White House.
“Carroll is not telling the truth, is a woman who I had nothing to do with, didn’t know, and would have no interest in knowing her if I ever had the chance,” the statement said. “And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!”
Trump doubled down on the comments during his deposition in October of last year, where he called Carroll a “whack job.” “Physically, she’s not my type, and now that I’ve gotten indirectly to hear things about her, she wouldn’t be my type in any way, shape or form,” he said, according to a court filing.
In the same proceeding, he was shown a picture of him and Carroll standing together at an event, and mistook her for his wife in that time period, Marla Maples. “That’s Marla. Yeah, that’s my wife,” he said. After the mistake was pointed out to him, he said the picture was “very blurry.”
The two friends Carroll said she told about the alleged attack, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, are expected to testify on her behalf, as are two other women who say they were sexually assaulted by Trump, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff. Trump has denied those accusations as well, saying the alleged incidents never happened.
The judge said he was allowing the testimony of Leeds and Stoynoff as well as the notorious “Access Hollywood” tape that captured Trump saying he can grope women without their consent — in order to let Carroll put forward her allegation that Trump has a propensity for sexual assault.
In his deposition, Trump mocked both Carroll and Leeds for saying they couldn’t recall the date — or in Carroll’s case, even the year — of the alleged attacks.
Trump told Carroll’s lawyer that if such a thing had happened, “your client would know to the second. She’d know down to the second. She’d know the month, the date, the year down to the second.”
Kaplan, who’d noted earlier in the deposition that Trump seemed to not remember when he got engaged to his wife Melania, then asked him the date of when he married the former first lady.
“I don’t want to even give you the answer. I’m not going to dignify it,” Trump responded, according to court filings.
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