NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Sunday turned down his last chance to testify in a civil trial in which a columnist accuses him of raping her in the fitting rooms of a high-end department store in 1996.
Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had given Trump until 5 p.m. Sunday to submit a request to testify. No document was submitted.
It was not a surprise. Trump, a hopeful for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has not appeared once during the two-week trial in Manhattan, in which writer E. Jean Carroll testified for several days, reiterating the allegations she first made. in a 2019 memoir. Carroll is seeking multi-million dollar damages.
The jury also saw lengthy excerpts from a videotaped deposition Trump made last October, in which the former president vehemently denied that he raped Carroll or even knew her.
Without Trump’s testimony, the lawyers were scheduled to present closing arguments Monday, with deliberations likely to begin Tuesday.
After the prosecution concluded their case Thursday, Trump’s defense attorney Joe Tacopina immediately concluded his case without calling witnesses. He did not request additional time for Trump to make the decision to testify. By email, Tacopina declined to comment after Kaplan’s deadline expired.
Kaplan had given Trump additional time on Thursday to change his mind and ask to be allowed to testify, though the judge did not promise to grant that request to reopen the defense presentation so the former president could take the stand. .
At the time, Kaplan noted that he had heard press reports from the same Thursday in which Trump had told reporters while he was visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, that he would “probably come” to the trial. Trump also criticized Kaplan, who was appointed to the post by President Bill Clinton, calling him “extremely hostile” and a “tough judge” who “didn’t like me very much.”
On the stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in the spring of 1996 after they met at the entrance to the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.
The Associated Press does not usually identify people who have said they have been sexually assaulted unless they go public, as in Carroll’s case.
