The first of three bombshell cases facing Donald Trump in his home state will head to trial this week in a civil rape lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll — including allegations waiting five years to make it before a panel of New Yorkers.
Jury selection starts Tuesday in Manhattan federal court in Carroll’s sexual battery and defamation suit against Trump, who was indicted this month on criminal charges related to hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels and is also the subject of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million financial fraud lawsuit.
Carroll, 79, alleges that Trump raped her inside a changing room at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in the fall of 1995 or spring of 1996 after they bumped into each other in a happenstance encounter, and he asked her to help pick out lingerie.
At the time, Carroll and Trump moved in the same high society media circles, her case details. Carroll hosted “Ask E. Jean TV” on Roger Ailes’ “America’s Talking” network and frequently appeared on daytime talk shows. Trump was running his family real estate empire and forging his image as one of the city’s movers and shakers.
What started as “playful banter” turned dark when Trump suggested the former Elle columnist try on a see-through bodysuit, Carroll’s lawsuit details.
At the dressing rooms, Carroll alleges Trump pinned her against a wall, bumping her head twice, pulled down her tights, and raped her.
Carroll says the attack lasted two to three minutes. The manner in which Trump has denied it has resulted in defamation claims, with Carroll alleging he slandered her name when he called her a liar in comments during his presidency and after.
Jurors will hear from two of Carroll’s friends who she confided in — author and correspondent Lisa Birnbach, whom she called in the immediate aftermath, and Carol Martin, the longtime news anchor she told days later.
Birnbach urged her to report the assault, but Martin told her not to.
“Tell no one. Forget it! He has two hundred lawyers. He’ll bury you,” Martin is quoted in the suit.
“Carroll took Martin’s advice. She knew how brutal and dangerous Trump could be. Carroll was also afraid of being dragged through the mud if she reported the rape. She was convinced that nobody would believe her if she came forward. And like so many other survivors of sexual assault, Carroll also blamed herself,” reads the suit.
Carroll says she was never intimate with a man again after the alleged assault.
Who else is testifying?
Jurors will hear from two of at least 26 women who have accused Trump of sexual assault.
Natasha Stoynoff claims that Trump pushed her against a wall during a December 2005 interview at Mar-a-Lago, when she was interviewing him for People magazine, and forced his tongue down her throat.
Jessica Leeds claims Trump molested her while seated next to him on a flight to New York in the 1980s. She says he grabbed her breast and put his hand up her skirt.
Trump denies everything.
Carroll decided to go public in June 2019 when a tsunami of women spoke out about abuse they’d suffered at the hands of powerful men, and society appeared to listen.
New York Magazine brought her claims to light by publishing an excerpt of her book “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.”
In response to the allegations revealed in Carroll’s book, Trump lashed out, telling The Hill: “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?”
Carroll has long waited for her day in court.
The case going to trial Tuesday, which Carroll filed in November, is the second of two lawsuits Carroll’s brought against Trump. It was the first brought under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.
Trump’s incendiary denials led to Carroll’s first lawsuit in 2019, which runs parallel to the case going to trial, when she sued him for defamation.
Then-President Trump argued that presidents can’t be sued.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presides over both lawsuits, disagreed with Trump’s argument in October 2020, finding it “would mean that a president is free to defame anyone who criticizes his conduct or impugns his character.”
Trump’s appeal of that decision is still playing out.
Trump has not yet said whether he’ll attend the upcoming trial, but Carroll will be there.
Jurors will also see the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump bragged about having license to molest women because he’s famous.
And Carroll’s lawyers will play Trump’s deposition, in which he disparaged her looks and called her a “wack job,” “nut job,” and misidentified her in a photo of them together as Marla Maples, his ex-wife.
The New Yorkers who will weigh Trump’s liability will remain anonymous, Judge Kaplan recently ruled, citing the potential dangers of Trump’s rhetoric toward members of the public who recently voted to indict him.
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