Author E. Jean Carroll arrives for her civil trial against former President Donald Trump at Manhattan’s federal court in Latest York City, May 8, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Getty Images
A lawyer for author E. Jean Carroll told jurors Monday that Donald Trump followed a “playbook” he had for kissing and groping women without their consent before he raped Carroll in a Latest York department store dressing room within the mid-Nineties.
“You will need to hold him to account for what he’s done,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said, as she delivered the closing argument to jurors in U.S. District Court in Manhattan for a civil trial, where Trump is accused of battery and of defaming the author.
Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina, in his own summation, called Carroll’s case “a scam,” arguing that “the evidence of this case shows that what E. Jean Carroll has done is an affront to justice.”
“She abused the system by bringing a false claim for money, status and political reasons,” Tacopina said. “She is minimizing real rape and exploiting real pain and suffering and we cannot let her profit to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.”
The trial is going down as Trump, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, faces multiple criminal investigations.
About two dozen women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct through the years.
But Carroll’s lawsuit, which was filed when he was the president, is the primary such claim to go to trial. Two other women testified through the trial about Trump groping them in separate incidents years ago.
“When America voted for Trump, all of us knew how he treated women,” said Michael Ferrara, one other lawyer for Carroll, in a rebuttal to Tacopina.
“America voted for him anyway,” Ferrara said.
Kaplan, arguing that what happened to Carroll is a component of a longstanding pattern of behavior by Trump, showed jurors a snippet of the “Access Hollywood” tape through which he boasted in 2005 about touching women without their consent.
“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I do not even wait. And if you’re a star, they allow you to do it. You’ll be able to do anything. Grab ’em by the p—y. You’ll be able to do anything,” Trump said on the tape, recorded for an appearance on that entertainment show.
Kaplan told jurors: “What’s he doing here? He’s telling you in his own words his modus operandi, his M.O. … he kissed them without their consent.”
“The evidence shows overwhelmingly he followed this playbook and within the dressing room there grabbed [Carroll] by the p—y,” she said.
In his deposition within the case, Trump told Kaplan that “unfortunately or fortunately,” for “tens of millions of years,” stars had been capable of sexually grope women without asking permission first.
Former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll watches as former President Donald Trump’s video deposition is played in court during a civil trial through which Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room within the mid-Nineties and of defamation, in Latest York, May 4, 2023, on this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
“He actually used the word ‘fortunately’ describing sexual assault,” Kaplan told jurors.
“Who would say, ‘fortunately’? Someone who thinks they’re a star,” Kaplan said. “He thinks stars like him can get away with it.”
Carroll testified earlier within the trial that the previous president had raped her in a dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan after they’d a probability encounter at that store.
Trump, 76, denies raping the now 79-year-old Carroll and has accused her of creating up the story for political and financial reasons.
He also has repeatedly said Carroll is “not my type.”
But Kaplan on Monday showed jurors a video of Trump’s deposition taken last fall. He was asked a few photo of him, Carroll, her then-husband and Trump’s then-wife Ivana Trump at an event from the Eighties.
“That is Marla,” Trump says on that tape in regards to the photo, identifying Carroll as his other ex-wife, Marla Maples.
Kaplan told jurors Monday: “He pointed to Ms. Carroll, who he says just isn’t his type, and mistook her for Marla Maples.”
Carroll “is precisely his type and he repeated it twice and only modified when his lawyer pointed it out,” Kaplan said. “He made up an excuse for why he made a mistake, saying it was blurry, and you recognize it’s in no way blurry … E. Jean Carroll is a former cheerleader from Indiana, was exactly his type.”
A picture that was presented as an exhibit through the Carroll v. Trump civil trial, through which former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accuses former President Donald Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room within the mid-Nineties and of defamation, which was obtained by Reuters on May 5, 2023.
EJ Carroll Legal Team Handout | Via Reuters
Trump’s lawyer Tacopina, in his summation, noted that “people have strong opinions about Donald Trump.” But he argued they need to act on those feelings at “the ballot box,” not in deciding the merits of the case.
“Apply the facts of the law … the rule of of law no matter that defendant’s name,” Tacopina said.
“They need you to hate him enough to disregard the facts … give attention to anything however the story,” he said.
The defense lawyer scoffed at the concept that Trump, whom he called “one among Latest York’s most famous people,” would attack Carroll in a department store just down the road from his home in Trump Tower, and imperil his profession in doing so.
“He goes to a department store and risks all of it and hopes nobody hears him banging someone against the wall?” Tacopina argued.
Tacopina also argued that Carroll “never planned on filing a lawsuit until George Conway got his hooks into her.”
Carroll testified that after going public along with her rape claim against Trump in a 2019 magazine article, the conservative lawyer Conway encouraged her to think “seriously” about suing the previous president. The avowed Trump enemy Conway and his wife, former Trump White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, jointly announced they were getting divorced in March.
“We’re saying it didn’t occur since it didn’t occur,” Tacopina said, referring to the rape claim.
“How do you prove a negative? How do you prove you didn’t do it?” he said.
Trump, unlike Carroll, has not appeared in person for the trial.
The judge within the case had given Tacopina until Sunday afternoon to alter his decision to not have Trump testify in his own defense. But that deadline passed without the lawyer telling the judge that Trump would take the stand Monday.
Trump was criminally charged last month by the Manhattan District Attorney for allegedly falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment his then-lawyer made to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, before the election that yr.
He has pleaded not guilty in that case.
Trump also faces multiple criminal investigations for his efforts to overturn his loss within the 2020 election to President Joe Biden, and in reference to failing to give up government records, a lot of them classified, when he left the White House.
Correction: This story was updated to reflect that E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan spoke through the closing argument to jurors within the civil trial. A previous version of the story misspelled Kaplan’s name.
