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 in a division retailer dressing room within the Nineteen Nineties confronted cross examination that aimed to decrease her credibility.
A Trump lawyer tried to point out the jury that E. Jean Carroll has achieved the celebrity, if not the fortune, she desired after linking herself to Trump in a memoir describing the incident she alleges.
Carroll responded: “No, my status was lowered. I’m partaking in this trial to bring my own reputation and status back.”
Carroll’s testimony got here in Manhattan federal courtroom the place Trump was scolded a day earlier by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan after a lawyer for Carroll complained that he was grumbling in regards to the case loudly sufficient that jurors may hear him.
The decide advised the Republican front-runner for the presidency that he might need to think about ejecting him from the trial if he continued making feedback loudly sufficient for jurors to listen to. Carroll’s lawyer claimed he made remarks together with “it is a witch hunt” and “it really is a con job.”
Trump, who had attended the primary two days of the trial, went to Florida to attend the funeral of his mother-in-law.
On Thursday, Trump lawyer Alina Habba confronted Carroll with a collection of imply tweets that Trump supporters despatched her after studying excerpts of her memoir in {a magazine} article in June 2019 wherein she revealed her claims that Trump raped her.
Habba was attempting to point out jurors that social media posts that Carroll blamed on statements by Trump have been being despatched earlier than his statements have been launched.
“They follow Donald Trump They want to emulate him,” Habba mentioned. “They’re standing up for the man they admire.”
At one level, the decide shut down the road of questioning, saying it was “simply repetitious.”
The trial that started this week pertains solely to what, if something, a jury finds Trump owes Carroll for statements he made as president in June 2019 after excerpts of Carroll’s memoir which described her claims towards Trump have been revealed in {a magazine}.
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 harm him politically. She mentioned she lives in concern, 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 decide mentioned the jury’s determination 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 mentioned just 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 decide on Wednesday, Trump responded to the menace to eject him from the courtroom with: “I would love it.”
That prompted the decide 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 shall be requested to find out damages. Carroll is looking for $10 million in compensatory damages and considerably extra in punitive damages.
Habba mentioned in a gap assertion that Carroll shouldn’t obtain extra money, notably because the dying threats and feedback she receives on social media aren’t uncommon for public figures with a powerful 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”