NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump rejected his final likelihood Sunday to testify at a civil trial the place a longtime recommendation columnist has accused him of raping her in a luxurious division retailer dressing room in 1996.
Trump, a Republican candidate for president in 2024, was given till 5 p.m. Sunday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was filed.
It was not a shock. Trump has not proven up as soon as throughout the two-week Manhattan trial the place author E. Jean Carroll testified for a number of days, repeating claims she first made publicly in a 2019 memoir. She is searching for compensatory and punitive damages totaling tens of millions of {dollars}.
The jury has additionally watched prolonged excerpts from an October videotaped deposition by which Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever actually realizing her.
Without Trump’s testimony, attorneys have been scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, with deliberations more likely to start on Tuesday.
After plaintiffs rested their case Thursday, Trump legal professional Joe Tacopina instantly rested the protection case as effectively with out calling any witnesses. He didn’t request extra time for Trump to resolve to testify. Tacopina declined in an e-mail to remark after the deadline handed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump additional time to vary his thoughts and request to testify, although the decide didn’t promise he would grant such a request to reopen the protection case so Trump may take the stand.
At the time, Kaplan famous that he’d heard about information studies Thursday by which Trump instructed reporters whereas visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably attend” the trial. Trump additionally criticized Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, as an “extremely hostile” and “rough judge” who “doesn’t like me very much.”
On the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in spring 1996 after they met on the entrance of the midtown Manhattan division retailer Bergdorf Goodman.
She mentioned the encounter started as a enjoyable and flirtatious outing as Trump coaxed her into serving to him store for a present for an additional girl. She mentioned they ended up within the retailer’s desolate lingerie part, the place they teased one another to strive on a see-through bodysuit.
As Carroll recalled it, laughter accompanied them right into a dressing room the place Trump grew to become violent, slamming her up in opposition to a wall, pulling apart her tights and raping her earlier than she kneed him and fled the shop.
In his deposition, Trump mentioned Carroll made it up. He referred to as it “a false, disgusting lie” delivered by a “nut job” who was making an attempt to stoke gross sales of her e-book.
He additionally repeated feedback he made in statements that she was not his “type.”
“She’s not my type and that’s 100% true,” he mentioned.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”