Former President Donald TrumpHis lawyers have asked a judge to ban jurors at his upcoming civil trial testing from hearing testimony that he sexual assault two other women in addition to E. Jean Carroll, the writer sued him for defamation after she alleged in 2019 that he deflower her in the 1990s.
His lawyer also wants to federalize Manhattan court Judge Lewis Kaplan bans evidence about Trumpet’notorious “Hollywood Access” tape in which he brags about kissing and groping women without their consent, new legal disclosure profile.
That tape, recorded in 2005, was released shortly before the 2016 election. At the time, it was considered potentially fatal for Trump’s first bid for the White House.
“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just started kissing them, it was like a magnet. Just kiss. I didn’t even wait,” Trump said in the tape. “And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
Trump’s lawyers also asked Kaplan to prevent lawyers for Carroll, 79, from showing jurors evidence of Trump’s speeches and statements when he campaigned for president.
On the other hand, Carroll’s attorneys are asking Kaplan in their own filing to acknowledge the testimony of two other women, Jessica Leed And Natasha Stoynoff. They say Trump began groping them without permission in separate incidents.
Trump, who is seeking the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has denied raping Carroll or sexually assaulting anyone else.
Leeds said Mr Trump, now 76, sexually assaulted her on a plane around 1979 after a flight attendant invited her to sit next to him in first class.
Stoynoff has said that Trump sexually assaulted her at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005 “while she was writing a story for People Magazine about the celebration one year of Trump’s upcoming wedding day” for Melania Trump, Carroll’s court filings note.
Carroll’s attorneys wrote: “Their testimony was admissible because a sexual assault was the ‘factual premise’ of Carroll’s claim and because their testimony demonstrated that Trump’s mode of action was coercive,” Carroll’s attorneys wrote. against women who disagree”.
“The allegations made by Stoynoff and Leeds against Trump, and his responses to denying them, are strong evidence that he has committed additional sexual assaults,” the filing reads. .
In contrast, Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, said that testimony should be prohibited under the federal Rules of Evidence.
Habba wrote that even if it were allowed under an exception to those rules, it should not be given to jurors because “the probative value of testimony… does not exceed the Substantial ant will lead to [Trump] by allowing them to include.”
Kaplan has yet to rule on the dueling claims, which could affect the outcome of the trial that will begin in April.
Carroll is suing Trump for allegedly defaming her. He claims she lied and was motivated by money, as she wrote in 2019 New York an article and a book that Trump raped her in the dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996 after a chance encounter.
At the time the alleged incident took place, Trump was married to his second wife, Marla Maples.
Carroll, in making her statement, joined at least two dozen women who have been accused of sexual misconduct by Trump over five decades. Among them was his first wife, Ivana Trump, who during their divorce in the late 1980s said he had rape her. Ivana later withdrew that allegation.
In her testimony about the case in October, Leeds testified about Trump’s actions on the plane.
“He grabbed me with both hands, tried to kiss me, grabbed my chest, pulled me towards him, pulled him on top of me,” Leeds testified.
“Part of my mind is wondering why the people… in the back seat of me didn’t notice that the chair was rocking and why didn’t the guy sitting across from me say anything or where the hostess was? ? ,” she speaks.
“That’s when he started to put his hand on my skirt, I realized that no one was going to save me but me, and I was in the aisle, I managed to roll out of my chair and grab my wallet and I Go back to my seat in the back,” Leeds testified.
A lawyer asked her, “And did Donald Trump say anything while this was happening?”
Leeds replied: “Not a word.”
“There was never any sound that I could recall,” she said.
According to court filings of Carroll’s attorneys, “A few years later, when Trump saw [Leeds] at a charity event, he said, ‘you’re c— from the plane.'”
“And after Leeds made her allegations [in public decades later]Trump denied them and implied that she was also ‘not his type,'” the filing noted.
Trump has also said of Carroll that she’s “not my type.”
During his own recent hearing by Carroll’s attorneys, Trump repeated claims that Carroll was not his type.
“She’s not a woman I’ve ever been attracted to,” he testified.
But at another point during his hearing, when shown a photo from 1987, he and then-wife Ivana Trump were talking to Carroll and her then-husband, Trump identified Carroll as Maple treewhom he married after his divorce from Ivana.
Stoynoff, in her own testimony in October, recounted allegations that Trump assaulted her. She testified that when she visited Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump, “I walked into the room first and I was looking around the room wondering what he wanted to show me. Nice room, he wanted it. show me something.” “
“Then I heard the door close behind me and I turned and he was right here… and he grabbed my shoulder, pushed me against the wall and started kissing me,” Stoynoff said.
When asked by his lawyer if Trump said anything when he started kissing her, Stoynoff replied: “No.”
Stoynoff testified that she was “absolutely shocked” by Trump’s strides, “because it happened so quickly and I was . . . taken by surprise.”
The lawyer asked: “And when you pushed him back for the first time, do you remember how Donald Trump reacted?”
Stoynoff said, “Yes. He’s coming towards me again.”
