Former President of the United States, Donald Trump yesterday rejected his last chance to testify at a civil trial where a longtime advice columnist has accused him of raping her in a luxury department store dressing room in 1996.
Trump who is aspiring to pick the tick of the Republican party for the 2024 Presidency, was given until 5pm local time (21:00 GMT) Sunday by US District Judge Lewis A Kaplan to file a request to testify. Nothing was filed.
It did not come as a shock. Author E Jean Carroll testified for several days in the two-week New York City trial, echoing assertions she previously made public in a 2019 biography. Trump has not appeared once during the trial. She is requesting millions of dollars in both compensatory and punitive damages.
The jury has also seen extensive clips from a videotaped deposition from October in which Trump strongly denied ever knowing Carroll or raping her.
Without Trump’s testimony, attorneys were supposed to present their final arguments on Monday, and voting was expected to start the following day.
After plaintiffs rested their case Thursday, Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina immediately rested the defence case as well without calling any witnesses. He did not request additional time for Trump to decide to testify. Tacopina declined to comment to the Associated Press news agency after the deadline passed Sunday.
On Thursday, Kaplan had given Trump extra time to change his mind and request to testify, though the judge did not promise he would grant such a request to reopen the defence case so Trump could take the stand.
At the time, Kaplan noted that he had heard about news reports Thursday in which Trump told reporters while visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would ‘probably attend’ the trial. Trump also criticised Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, as an ‘extremely hostile’ and ‘rough judge’ who ‘doesn’t like me very much’.
On the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in early 1996 after they met at the entrance of the midtown Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman.
She said the encounter began as a fun and flirtatious outing as Trump coaxed her into helping him shop for a gift for another woman. She said they ended up in the store’s desolate lingerie section, where they teased each other to try on a see-through bodysuit.
As Carroll recalled it, laughter accompanied them into a dressing room where Trump became violent, slamming her up against a wall, pulling aside her tights and raping her before she kneed him and fled the store.
In his deposition, Trump said Carroll made it up. He called it “a false, disgusting lie” delivered by a “nut job” trying to stoke sales of her book.
He also repeated comments he made in statements that she was not his type.