At Donald Trump’s civil trial for rape, another woman testified against the former US president. She accuses him of having sexually assaulted her in the late 1970s on a plane.
Another woman said on Tuesday that she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump on a plane in the late 1970s, during a civil trial in New York where the former US president is being sued for rape and defamation by author E. John Carroll.
Jessica Leeds, 81, who had already come out of silence in 2016 in the New York Timesrecounted in federal civil court in Manhattan how, “in 1978-79”, on a plane to New York, she had extricated herself from her seat in first class because the businessman had tried to kiss in the neck, then put his hands on his body.
“There was no discussion, it came out of nowhere (…) He tried to kiss me, to grab my breasts”, affirmed Jessica Leeds at the civil lawsuit started last week for alleged rape and defamation, brought by E. Jean Carroll who seeks compensation from Donald Trump.
A testimony under oath
Before the nine jurors, Jessica Leeds explained under oath that she found the strength at the time to get up and leave when Donald Trump “put his hands under my blouse”.
“It seemed like an eternity to me” when it took place in a few “seconds” added this woman invited to testify by the lawyers of E. Jean Carroll, who accuses the former President of the United States of the raped in a dressing room of a New York department store in 1996.
Donald Trump, who did not appear at the trial, refutes these allegations and claims to have never met this former journalist who was notably a columnist for the magazine Elle.
Jessica Leeds explained that she only came out of silence in 2016, when Donald Trump said, during a presidential debate against Hillary Clinton, that he “respected women” and had never committed sexual assault.
The jurors were able to watch this television sequence, during which the Republican candidate had to defend himself after the broadcast of insulting remarks against women.
“I was furious that he was lying,” Jessica Leeds said.
The corroborated story
Earlier Tuesday morning, a friend of E. Jean Carroll, columnist Lisa Birnbach, corroborated the complainant’s account.
She confirmed that she had called her just after the alleged facts, in 1996, to tell her that Donald Trump had “attacked” her.
“I want the world to know she was telling the truth,” Birnbach said.
This witness was also questioned by Donald Trump’s defense about unkind remarks she had made about the ex-president, described as a “narcissistic sociopath”, “Russian agent” and “employee of Putin”. Comments she assumed on Tuesday.
Donald Trump is not criminally prosecuted for rape in this case. E. Jean Carroll filed the suit based on a New York state law last November providing that option for one year for criminally statute-barred sexual assault cases.
