“I am here because Donald Trump raped me”: former American columnist E. Jean Carroll delivered heavy accusations against the former President of the United States on Wednesday, who refutes them, during a civil trial in New York where she seeks compensation.
On the second day of this trial in Manhattan federal court, E. Jean Carroll, 79, spoke in a calm and serious voice, in front of the nine citizens drawn by lot to determine whether Donald Trump has it or not. assaulted in the mid-1990s, in a fitting room of the New York luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman.
“I’m here,” she said, more than 25 years later, “because Donald Trump raped me.” Then, in stony silence, the former Elle magazine columnist continued, “And when I wrote about it (in a book in 2019), he said it didn’t happen. He lied and ruined my reputation. I am here to take back the course of my life. »
The judge warns Donald Trump and his lawyer
Donald Trump has always refuted these accusations, claiming not to know E. Jean Carroll, despite a photo where we see them both, or swearing that she was “not his type”. The former president, who will probably not come to give his version at the trial (his lawyer has until Friday to indicate whether he intends to call him to the bar), spoke on his social network Truth Social to denounce ” a fabricated scam”.
This new public outing was strongly criticized by Judge Kaplan, who ordered Donald Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, to call his client to order. Because by publicly commenting on the case in the middle of the trial, he risks exposing himself to new “charges”, potentially of obstruction of justice.
Assault and defamation
The alleged facts are time-barred, but E. Jean Carroll was able to sue Donald Trump under a New York state law allowing victims of sexual assault to relaunch their civil lawsuit. She asks the jury to assess the amount of financial reparations for “assault”, but also “defamation”, because of Donald Trump’s remarks on the case.
The former columnist has not yet been questioned by the former president’s lawyers, one of whom, Joe Tacopina, has already portrayed her as a storyteller hungry for money and recognition.
E. Jean Carroll does not remember the date when the attack took place, which she places by deduction during the spring of 1996, and there is no eyewitness who saw her with Donald Trump in the store. Two friends, to whom she had confided shortly after the alleged facts, will come to corroborate her account at the bar, promised Tuesday one of the lawyers of E. John Carroll.
The former president dreams of winning back the White House in 2024 from Joe Biden, who declared himself a candidate on Tuesday, but he sees the legal cases piling up. In early April, an unprecedented historical fact for a former US president, he was criminally charged in New York with 34 accounting and tax frauds related to payments to cover up embarrassing business before the 2016 presidential election.