Donald Trump did not appear at a civil rape trial against him because he “knows what he did” to the woman who accused him of raping her, a jury heard in closing remarks.
Lawyers for writer E Jean Carroll, who is suing the former president, said Trump “didn’t even bother to appear in person” at the civil trial in New York and called him a “witness against himself “.
Ms Carroll, 79, says Mr Trump raped her in the locker room of a department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and then tarnished her reputation by lying about it online, which he denies.
You are seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
During the process, Mrs. Carroll testified and told jurors that Mr. Trump “shattered” his reputation and she was there “to try and get my life back”.
Trump’s attorney insists Carroll “abused the system” for “economic, status and political reasons” and said his inability to remember the date of the alleged incident made it impossible for Trump to defend himself.
In week three’s closing remarks, Ms. Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan played to jurors a portion of the 2005 Access Hollywood video in which Trump said into a hot microphone that celebrities could grab women’s genitals without ask.
Ms. Kaplan recalled Trump’s comment that “stars like him can get away with sexually assaulting women.”
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Moment in which Trump confuses the accuser of rape with his ex-wife
He said, “That’s who Donald Trump is. That’s how he thinks. And that’s what he does.”
He told jurors that much of what he said in his deposition and public statements “actually supports our side of the case,” adding that he is “a witness against himself.”
“He knows what he did. He knows he sexually assaulted AND Jean Carroll,” Kaplan said.
In the trial, jurors were also shown a deposition from Mr. Trump confuses Mrs. Carroll with his ex-wife Marla Maples in a photograph — which Ms Carroll’s lawyers say undermines the former president’s argument that she wasn’t his type.
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Trump: ‘You are a fake!’
Mr Trump said he could not have raped Ms Carroll, because she is “not my type” and called the case politically motivated.
The former president has waived his right to testify at the trial and has opted not to present a defense, betting that jurors will find that Ms. Carroll has failed to make a convincing case.
In closing arguments, Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, said Carroll had “abused this system.”
He said: “He abused this system by filing a false claim for, among other things, money, status, political reasons.
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“Without a date, no month, no year, you can’t present an alibi, you can’t call witnesses.
“What they want is for you to hate him enough to ignore the facts.”
Since Ms. Carroll first formulated her allegations in a 2019 memoir, Mr. Trump, 76, has denied that any rape ever occurred or that he even knew Ms. Carroll.
Ms Carroll said that after meeting Mr Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan, they teased each other to try on a piece of lingerie.
She claimed they ended up alone together in a locker room, where Mr. Trump pushed her against a wall and raped her before she pushed him back and fled.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, who is not related to Kaplan, told jurors they would begin deliberations on Tuesday.
