Jury will begin deliberations in Trump rape trial on Tuesday
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If found liable, Donald Trump could be made to pay monetary damages.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
NEW YORK – After a two-week trial examining accusations that former president Donald Trump raped a woman decades ago, a jury in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday will begin deciding whether he is liable for battery and defamation.
Ms E. Jean Carroll, a 79-year-old former columnist for Elle magazine, accused Trump of raping her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.
If found liable, Trump could be made to pay monetary damages and retract statements he made casting aspersions on Ms Carroll and her case.
Both sides delivered closing arguments on Monday.
Ms Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Ms Carroll who delivered a 75-minute closing, reminded the jury that no one, not even a former president, is above the law.
“Donald Trump’s defence here is essentially that there is a vast conspiracy against him,” said Ms Kaplan.
“Donald Trump wants and needs you to disregard all the evidence that you heard in this case.”
Trump’s lawyers, who called no witnesses, portrayed the accusations as improbable because the store was a public place and Trump was already famous.
“Amazing, odd, inconceivable, unbelievable,” said Mr Joseph Tacopina, Trump’s lawyer.
“Everything in this case is one of these things.”
Trump has denied all wrongdoing and has called the allegations a “hoax”.
The jury consists of six men and three women, all of whom were poker-faced, rarely showing their feelings about the testimony.
The trial has forced participants to relive events of decades ago, and it comes amid a flurry of legal actions aimed at Trump, 76, as he tries to regain office.
Among the case’s notable moments:
– Ms Carroll gave a visceral account of an event that she says marked the end of her romantic life.
– Trump in a videotaped deposition reiterated his earlier claim that he would not have raped Ms Carroll because he did not find her appealing and declined to repudiate vulgar comments he made in 2005 about being entitled as a celebrity to kiss women and grab them by their genitals.
– The former president made a campaign appearance as testimony continued, in which he mocked many of his legal opponents – but not Ms Carroll. NYTIMES
