By JAKE OFFENHARTZ and LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — With former President Donald Trump not within the courtroom Thursday, a columnist who accused him of sexually attacking her concluded her testimony with an emphatic denial that she had benefited from the publicity that adopted the allegations.
A Trump lawyer tried to point out the jury that E. Jean Carroll has achieved the celebrity, if not the fortune, she desired after the publication of a memoir accusing Trump of raping her in a division retailer dressing room within the Nineties.
Carroll responded: “No, my status was lowered. I’m partaking in this trial to bring my own reputation and status back.”
The testimony got here on the third day of a trial in Manhattan federal courtroom that may decide what damages, if any, Trump owes for remarks he made about Carroll when he was president. A jury has already discovered Trump responsible for sexually abusing Carroll in 1996 and defaming her in a separate spherical of denials he made following his presidency.
In her ultimate day on the witness stand, Carroll stated her allegations towards Trump – first made public in a 2019 article in New York Magazine – had introduced her an sudden diploma of infamy, together with demise threats.
An lawyer for Trump, Alina Habba, countered that Carroll’s social media followers elevated “exponentially” because the allegations, including that she had gained skilled alternatives and social standing amongst left-leaning celebrities.
“I’ve been invited to two parties,” Carroll responded dryly, earlier than including: “Yes, I’m more well known and I’m hated by a lot more people.”
Trump, who had attended the primary two days of the trial, was in Florida Thursday for the funeral of his mother-in-law.
During the day before today’s continuing, he was scolded by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan and threatened with expulsion after a lawyer for Carroll complained he was grumbling concerning the case loudly sufficient that jurors may hear him.
Though he was absent from the courtroom Thursday, Trump’s presence nonetheless loomed over the proceedings, as legal professionals for Carroll performed a video of his press convention from the earlier night describing the trial as “rigged” and Carroll as “a person I never knew.”
On Thursday, Habba additionally confirmed jurors a sequence of imply tweets despatched to Carroll within the hours after her allegations grew to become public in 2019 however earlier than Trump launched his first public statements — an obvious effort to show the vitriol directed at Carroll was unrelated to the previous president’s statements.
“They follow Donald Trump. They want to emulate him,” Carroll stated. “They’re standing up for the man they admire.”
The choose shortly shut down the road of questioning, saying it was “simply repetitious.”
Carroll has testified that her life modified dramatically after Trump branded her a liar, claimed he by no means met her and asserted that she made her claims towards him to advertise her e book and injury him politically. She stated she lives in worry, sleeps with a loaded gun beside her and desires she may increase her safety however doesn’t manage to pay for.
Last May, a jury in the identical courtroom awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after concluding Trump sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman retailer throughout the road from Trump Tower in spring 1996 after which defamed her with statements in October 2022.
In that verdict, jurors rejected Carroll’s declare that she was raped, discovering Trump liable for a lesser diploma of sexual abuse. The choose stated the jury’s resolution was primarily based on “the narrow, technical meaning” of rape in New York penal legislation and that, in his evaluation, the decision didn’t imply that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Trump didn’t attend that trial and has stated lately on the marketing campaign path that he was suggested by his lawyer to remain away.
Trump has been animated throughout his two days within the courtroom this week, shaking his head at testimony he disagreed with, passing notes to his legal professionals and talking to them whereas jurors have been within the room.
During his confrontation with the choose on Wednesday, Trump responded to the risk to eject him from the courtroom with: “I would love it.”
That prompted the choose to say: “I know you would. You just can’t control yourself in these circumstances, apparently.”
After he left the courthouse Wednesday, Trump advised reporters that Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, was “a nasty judge” and a “Trump-hating guy” who was “obviously not impartial.”
Sometime subsequent week, the jury might be requested to find out damages. Carroll is searching for $10 million in compensatory damages and considerably extra in punitive damages.
Northwestern University sociologist Ashlee Humphreys, who testified ultimately 12 months’s trial, advised the jury Thursday that Trump’s 2019 statements had prompted between $7.2 million and $12.1 million in hurt to Carroll’s popularity after they have been seen or heard about up 104 million occasions via social, print and broadcast media. Her estimates have been primarily based on what she stated it could value to restore Carroll’s popularity.
Habba stated in a gap assertion that Carroll mustn’t obtain more cash, significantly because the demise threats and feedback she receives on social media are usually not uncommon for public figures with a robust social media presence.
“Regardless of a few mean tweets, Ms. Carroll is now more famous than she has ever been in her life, and loved and respected by many, which was her goal,” Habba advised jurors.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”