Jury starts deliberations in suit accusing Trump of rape

A jury in New York City began deliberating Tuesday in the lawsuit brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Donald Trump raped her in a luxury Manhattan department store in 1996. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury for about an hour before the panel began discussing Carroll’s allegations of battery and defamation.

If they believe Carroll, jurors can award compensatory and punitive damages. Trump, who did not attend the trial, has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her.

Kaplan told jurors that the first question on the verdict form will be to decide whether they think there is more than a 50% chance that Trump raped Carroll inside a store’s dressing room. If they answer yes, they will then decide whether compensatory and punitive damages should be awarded.

Otherwise, the judge instructed, they will decide whether Carroll had proven there was a more than 50% chance that Trump subjected her to sexual contact without her consent or whether he forcibly touched her to degrade her or gratify his sexual desire. If they answer yes, they will weigh if damages are appropriate.

On defamation claims stemming from a statement Trump made on social media last October, Kaplan said jurors will have to reach a conclusion based on a higher legal standard — clear and convincing evidence. He said that means they will have to agree it was “highly probable” that Trump’s statement was false and was made maliciously with deliberate intent to injure or out of hatred or ill will with reckless disregard for Carroll’s rights.

Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told the jury in closing arguments Monday that Carroll’s story is too far fetched to be believed. He said she made it up to fuel sales of a 2019 memoir in which she first publicly revealed her claims and to disparage Trump for political reasons.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Trump’s October deposition and his notorious comments on a 2005 Access Hollywood video in which he said celebrities can grab women between the legs without asking.

She urged jurors to believe her client.

“He didn’t even bother to show up here in person,” Kaplan said, referring to Trump’s absence from court during the two weeks of trial. She said much of what he said 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 said. “He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.”

Carroll, 79, testified that she had a chance encounter with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower. She said it was a lighthearted interaction in which they teased each other about trying on a piece of lingerie before Trump became violent inside a dressing room.

Tacopina told jurors there was no reason to call Trump as a witness when Carroll can’t even recall when her encounter with Trump happened.

He told the jury Carroll made up her claims after hearing about a 2012 Law and Order episode in which a woman is raped in the dressing room of the lingerie section of a Bergdorf Goodman store.

“They modeled their secret scheme on an episode of one of the most popular shows on television,” he said of Carroll.

Two of Carroll’s friends testified that she told them about the encounter with Trump shortly after it happened, many years before the Law and Order episode aired.

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