Trump has not been criminally prosecuted and has repeatedly denied the accusations against him, often saying that Carroll is “not his type.”
The lawyer for the former American writer and journalist E. Jane Carroll, who accuses former US President Donald Trump of raping and defaming her, has ordered the jury of the civil court hearing the case in New York to convict the Republican billionaire.
Roberta Kaplan, attorney for E. Jane Carroll during closing arguments in Manhattan Federal Court “No one is above the law, not even the former president.”
Carroll, 79, is suing Trump in a case in which she accuses him of raping her in a New York department store in the 1990s. Carroll, a former Elle columnist, also accuses Trump of defaming her by accusing her of lying after she publicly exposed the case in 2019.
Carroll revealed the case for the first time in excerpts from her book published by “New York Magazine” in 2019. Trump responded at the time, saying that he had never met her and that she was “a complete lie.”
Trump has not been criminally prosecuted and has repeatedly denied the accusations against him, often saying that Carroll is “not his type.”
“In fact,” Carroll was “exactly his type,” Kaplan told the nine-member jury, which is due to begin deliberations on Tuesday. The court is supposed to hear the closing arguments of Trump’s defense attorneys later on Monday.
In the case, Carroll seeks unspecified compensation for the psychological trauma and other harm she suffered and demands that Trump retract his statements.
Within two weeks, the court heard allegations made by Carroll and two other women that Trump sexually assaulted them decades ago. Trump denies the accusations of sexual harassment against him, and he did not attend the trial.
The case cannot lead to any criminal prosecutions, but if the jury stands by Carroll, it will be the first time that Trump has been prosecuted for sexual assault.
This comes as the 76-year-old former president (2017-2021) seeks to win the Republican nomination to challenge US President Joe Biden in November 2024, but he faces increasing lawsuits.
In early April, Trump was formally charged with 34 counts of accounting and tax fraud related to payments to cover up several cases, including a sexual relationship with porn actress Stormy Daniels, which he also denied.
Among the most prominent cases haunting the forty-fifth president of the United States are the accusations leveled against him of exerting pressure on officials of the electoral process in the state of Georgia in 2020, in addition to an investigation regarding his handling of the White House archives.