2023-04-26 22:32:47
“I am here because Donald Trump raped me”: author and former American columnist E. Jean Carroll delivered heavy accusations against the former President of the United States on Wednesday, who refutes them, during a civil trial in New York where she seeks compensation.
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On the second day of this trial in Manhattan federal court, E. Jean Carroll, 79, spoke in a calm and serious voice, in front of the nine citizens drawn by lot to determine whether Donald Trump has it or not. assaulted in the mid-1990s, in a fitting room of the New York luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman.
“I’m here,” she said, more than 25 years later, “because Donald Trump raped me.”
Then, in dead silence, the former Elle magazine columnist continued: “And when I wrote on the subject (in a book in 2019, editor’s note), he said it hadn’t happened. He lied and ruined my reputation. I am here to resume the course of my life.”
Donald Trump has always refuted these accusations, assuring that he did not know E. Jean Carroll, or that she was “not his type”. The former president, who will probably not come to give his version at the trial, spoke on his social network Truth Social to denounce “a scam fabricated from scratch”.
Assault and defamation
The alleged facts are criminally barred, but E. Jean Carroll was able to sue Donald Trump under a New York state law allowing victims of sexual assault to relaunch their civil lawsuit.
She asks the jury to assess the amount of financial reparations for “assault”, but also “defamation”, because of Donald Trump’s remarks on the case.
The former president dreams of winning back the White House in 2024 from Joe Biden, who declared himself a candidate on Tuesday, but he sees the legal cases piling up.
In early April, an unprecedented historical fact for a former US president, he was criminally charged in New York with 34 accounting and tax frauds related to payments to cover up embarrassing business before the 2016 presidential election.
“A few minutes”
Elegant and distinguished, with slightly sunken features, E. Jean Carroll recounted how “such a funny New York scene” at the start – the chance meeting with Donald Trump at the entrance to a department store, then a few jokes in the rays – turned into a nightmare in a dressing room on the 6th floor, deserted on this early evening in the spring of 1996.
According to her account, the then-all-New York businessman and celebrity recognizes her, as she writes a column in Elle, “Ask E. Jean.” He invites her in a very playful tone to help him choose a present. In the lingerie department, Donald Trump grabs an “undergarment” and asks her to try it on.
E. Jean Carroll still cannot explain more than 25 years after the alleged facts how she was able to follow him into the cabin.
According to her account, Donald Trump pushed her against the wall, stuck her, then lowered her pantyhose and penetrated her with “his fingers in (her) vagina”, then with her sex.
“A few minutes” which “made her unable to find a love life”, she testified.
Why did it take more than 20 years to come out of silence? “I was afraid of Donald Trump (…) I was ashamed (…) I thought it was my fault”.
The former columnist has not yet been questioned by the former president’s lawyers, one of whom, Joe Tacopina, has already portrayed her as a storyteller hungry for money and recognition.
E. Jean Carroll does not remember the date when the attack took place, which she places by deduction during the spring of 1996, and there is no eyewitness who saw her with Donald Trump in the store.
Two friends, to whom she had confided shortly after the alleged facts, will come to corroborate her account at the bar, promised Tuesday one of the lawyers of E. John Carroll.
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