NEW YORK - Ms E. Jean Carroll’s accusation that Donald Trump raped her was not a “he said, she said” dispute, a lawyer representing the writer told jurors on Tuesday as a civil trial over the former United States president’s conduct nearly three decades ago got under way.

Ms Shawn Crowley, who represents the former Elle magazine advice columnist, said in her opening statement that Trump “slammed Ms Carroll against the wall” and “pressed his lips to hers”, an account other witnesses were prepared to verify.

“This is not a ‘he said, she said’ case,” said Ms Crowley in federal court in Manhattan.

She told jurors they would also hear testimony from two other women who say Trump sexually assaulted them, which he denies.

Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina countered in his opening statement that the evidence will show the former president did not assault Ms Carroll.

Mr Tacopina also asked jurors in strongly Democratic Manhattan to set aside their feelings for Trump, a Republican and former New Yorker who has inspired strong opinions from across the political spectrum.

“You can hate Donald Trump. It’s fine,” he said.

Earlier in the day, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan sat nine jurors who will decide whether Trump raped Ms Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and defamed her by denying it happened.

In an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform, Trump, 76, called Ms Carroll’s rape claim a “hoax” and “complete Scam,” said she made it up to promote her memoir and declared Ms Carroll was “not my type!”

Ms Carroll, 79, is seeking unspecified damages for pain and suffering, psychological harm and invasion of privacy.

Her lawsuit invoked a new state law in New York giving adult sexual abuse victims a one-year window to sue their alleged attackers, even if statutes of limitations expired long ago.

The trial is expected to resume on Wednesday and last one to two weeks.

Ms Carroll’s witness list includes two friends in whom she said she confided after the attack, author Lisa Birnbach and former news anchor Carol Martin.

The two other women who may testify that Trump sexually assaulted them are Ms Jessica Leeds, who has said Trump groped her while seated beside her on a 1979 flight, and Ms Natasha Stoynoff, who said he attacked her in 2005 at his Florida mansion where she planned to interview him and his wife Melania.

Trump’s lawyers may try to undermine Ms Carroll’s credibility by noting that she did not call the police, remained publicly silent for more than two decades and cannot remember the day or month of her alleged attack.

Ms Carroll is also suing Trump for defamation after he first denied her rape claim in June 2019, when he was still president.

That case remains pending before Judge Kaplan. REUTERS