Trump loses bid to keep evidence out of rape trial
Former President Donald Trump’s effort to keep key evidence out of his civil rape trial next month was rejected by a federal judge Monday.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan ruled that key witnesses will be allowed to testify and misogynistic remarks Trump made about women in 2005 when he apparently didn’t realize he was being recorded can be played for a jury that will hear quarter-century-old rape allegations made by a former magazine columnist.
A trial in the case filed by E. Jean Carroll is scheduled to start April 25. Carroll and Trump are expected to testify.
Carroll said in a 2019 memoir that she was raped by Trump in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, an upscale Manhattan department store. She said a chance encounter filled with lighthearted banter turned violent when they entered a small room while teasing one another about who would try on a piece of lingerie.
Trump has repeatedly insisted he never met Carroll at the store and that he didn’t know who she was. During an October deposition, he misidentified a decades-old photograph of her as one of his ex-wives.
In the deposition, Trump was dismissive of Carroll’s claims, saying: “Physically she’s not my type.”
Kaplan had previously ruled that taped remarks Trump made in an “Access Hollywood” tape could be used in a defamation case Carroll brought against him before she filed a rape claim against him in November, when a temporary law took effect allowing adult rape victims to sue their abusers, even if attacks happened decades ago.
He also ruled that two women who made sexual abuse claims in circumstances similar to those alleged by Carroll could testify at trial.
Lawyers for Trump and Carroll had agreed that the defamation claim, made in a separate lawsuit, could be tried along with the rape claim, but the judge rejected that proposal Monday, saying the defamation lawsuit could be tried separately or not at all if the Justice Department successfully replaces Trump as a defendant with the United States.