Trump rejects last chance to testify at New York civil trial

NEW YORK (AP) — 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 Decide 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 in the course of the two-week Manhattan trial the place author E. Jean Carroll testified for several 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 lengthy excerpts from an October videotaped deposition wherein Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever actually understanding her.

With out Trump’s testimony, attorneys have been scheduled to make closing arguments Monday, with deliberations prone to start on Tuesday.

After plaintiffs rested their case Thursday, Trump lawyer 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 electronic mail to remark after the deadline handed Sunday.

On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump additional time to alter his thoughts and request to testify, although the choose didn’t promise he would grant such a request to reopen the protection case so Trump may take the stand.

On the time, Kaplan famous that he’d heard about information stories Thursday wherein Trump advised reporters whereas visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Eire, that he would “in all probability attend” the trial. Trump additionally criticized Kaplan, a Invoice Clinton appointee, as an “extraordinarily hostile” and “tough choose” who “doesn’t like me very a lot.”

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 stated the encounter started as a enjoyable and flirtatious outing as Trump coaxed her into serving to him store for a present for one more girl. She stated 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 towards a wall, pulling apart her tights and raping her earlier than she kneed him and fled the shop.

In his deposition, Trump stated Carroll made it up. He known as it “a false, disgusting lie” delivered by a “nut job” who was attempting to stoke gross sales of her e book.

He additionally repeated feedback he made in statements that she was not his “kind.”

“She’s not my kind and that’s 100% true,” he stated.

And he repeated his claims in a 2005 “Entry Hollywood” video wherein he bragged that males who’re celebrities can seize ladies by the genitals with out asking.

“Traditionally that’s true with stars,” he stated.

Carroll sued Trump in November, minutes after New York state enacted a regulation permitting grownup sexual assault victims to sue others even when the assaults occurred a long time earlier.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, wrote a letter to the choose Sunday to complain that Trump nonetheless has not eliminated April 26 posts on his social media community wherein he known as Carroll’s allegations “a made up SCAM.” And she or he famous that he repeated disparaging remarks in regards to the trial three days in the past in Eire.

After the April 26 postings on Reality Social, Decide Kaplan, who just isn’t associated to Carroll’s lawyer, stated Trump’s feedback have been “extremely inappropriate” and expressed concern that Trump was attempting to speak to the jury “about stuff that has no enterprise being spoken about.”

The Related Press sometimes doesn’t title individuals who say they’ve been sexually assaulted except they arrive ahead publicly, as Carroll has performed.