E. Jean Carroll accuses the former US president of having raped her in a fitting room of a New York department store.
By AFP
HASAccused by a journalist, E. Jean Carroll, of rape in the 1990s, former US President Donald Trump confused her in a photo with his ex-wife Marla Maples, according to a court document from an October deposition in New York.
Mr. Trump, 76, is scheduled to appear on April 10, 2023, in a New York court in a defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, 79, who accuses him of raping her in a dressing room at a a New York department store in 1995 or 1996.
A double civil case for alleged defamation and rape has opposed since 2019, then 2022, before federal justice in Manhattan, Ms. Carroll, former columnist for the magazine Sheto Donald Trump, 76, a billionaire businessman and Republican president from 2017 to 2021. The two produced their sworn depositions last October.
During his October 19 testimony by video link – made public this week – Donald Trump reaffirmed his line of defense: “I will say this with the greatest respect: first, she is not my type; then it never happened”. But when shown a photo of himself with Ms Carroll at a 1990s reception, he replied: ‘That’s Marla, that’s my wife’ before his own lawyer Alina Habba corrected him. Donald Trump was married from 1993 to 1999 to actress Marla Maples, 59, and met his current wife Melania in 1998.
Another nail in Donald Trump’s coffin
In the defamation suit, E. Jean Carroll sued Trump in November 2019. She accuses him of defaming her for calling her rape allegations a “complete lie” in June of that year. The tenant of the White House at the time always replied that Ms. Carroll was “not his kind of woman” and his lawyers claimed that he was protected, in 2019, by his immunity as head of state.
As for the rape charges, Ms. Carroll had not been able to file a complaint in 2019 since the alleged facts were prescribed. However, on November 24, 2022, a New York State law came into force (“Adult Survivors Act”) allowing, for one year, victims of sexual assault to relaunch their civil legal action.
A journalist relaunches her rape complaint against Donald Trump
Ms. Carroll therefore filed a new complaint in November in New York for “defamation” but also “assault” and “assault” and requested a civil trial for damages, which is to be held on April 10.
