By LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — A jury in New York City 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 Judge 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.
If 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, advised 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 gas gross sales of a 2019 memoir the place she first publicly revealed her claims and to disparage Trump for political causes.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Trump’s October deposition and his infamous feedback on a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video during which he stated celebrities can seize ladies between the legs with out asking.
She urged jurors to consider her consumer.
“He didn’t even bother to show up here in person,” Kaplan stated, referring to Trump’s absence from court docket throughout the two weeks of trial. She stated a lot of what he stated in his deposition and in public statements “actually supports our side of the case.”
“In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself,” she stated. “He knows what he did. He knows 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 during which they teased one another about attempting on a bit of lingerie earlier than Trump turned violent inside a dressing room.
Tacopina advised jurors there was no purpose to name Trump as a witness when Carroll can’t even recall when her encounter with Trump occurred.
He advised the jury Carroll made up her claims after listening to a couple of 2012 “Law and Order” episode during 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 one of the most popular shows on television,” he stated of Carroll.
Two of Carroll’s mates testified that she advised them in regards to the encounter with Trump shortly after it occurred, a few years earlier than the “Law and Order” episode aired.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”
