NEW YORK (AP) — A jury in New York Metropolis is about to start deliberations Tuesday in a civil trial over recommendation columnist E. Jean Carroll’s claims that Donald Trump raped her in a luxurious Manhattan division retailer in 1996.
U.S. District Choose Lewis A. Kaplan will learn directions on the regulation to the nine-person jury for about an hour earlier than jurors start discussing the civil claims of battery and defamation.
In the event that they consider Carroll, jurors can award compensatory and punitive damages. Trump, who didn’t attend the trial, has insisted he by no means sexually assaulted Carroll or knew her.
Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, instructed the jury in closing arguments Monday that Carroll’s story is simply too far fetched to be believed. He stated she made it as much as gasoline gross sales of a 2019 memoir the place she first publicly revealed her claims and to disparage Trump for political causes.
Carroll’s legal professional, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Trump’s October deposition and his infamous feedback on a 2005 “Entry Hollywood” video through which he stated celebrities can seize ladies between the legs with out asking.
She urged jurors to consider her shopper.
“He didn’t even trouble to indicate up right here in particular person,” Kaplan stated, referring to Trump’s absence from court docket through the two weeks of trial. She stated a lot of what he stated in his deposition and in public statements “truly helps our aspect of the case.”
“In a really actual sense, Donald Trump is a witness in opposition to himself,” she stated. “He is aware of what he did. He is aware of that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.”
Carroll, 79, testified that she had an opportunity encounter with Trump on the Bergdorf Goodman retailer throughout the road from Trump Tower. She stated it was a lighthearted interplay through which they teased one another about attempting on a bit of lingerie earlier than Trump grew to become violent inside a dressing room.
Tacopina instructed jurors there was no purpose to name Trump as a witness when Carroll cannot even recall when her encounter with Trump occurred.
He instructed the jury Carroll made up her claims after listening to a couple of 2012 “Regulation and Order” episode through which a girl is raped within the dressing room of the lingerie part of a Bergdorf Goodman retailer.
“They modeled their secret scheme on an episode of some of the widespread reveals on tv,” he stated of Carroll.
Two of Carroll’s buddies testified that she instructed them concerning the encounter with Trump shortly after it occurred, a few years earlier than the “Regulation and Order” episode aired.