Swift doesn’t mince words in groping case testimony
A defiant and occasionally exasperated Taylor Swift insisted during a whirlwind hour of testimony Thursday that a Denver disc jockey grabbed her bare backside and held on for a long time during a meet-and-greet before a concert. The pop superstar used explicit language that seemed designed to avoid sugar-coating what she said was a sexual assault when she posed for a picture with David Mueller in 2013. “He stayed attached to my bare ass-cheek as I lurched away from him,” Swift testified in federal court during a trial over dueling lawsuits in the case. “It was a definite grab. A very long grab,” she said at one point. The singer-songwriter used the word “ass” dozens of times on the witness stand, sometimes sarcastically, in her testy exchange with Mueller’s attorney that occasionally elicited chuckles — even from the eight-member jury. Swift got a laugh from people in the courtroom when she said her security guard, Greg Dent, saw Mueller “lift my skirt” but someone would have had to have been underneath her to see the actual groping — “and we didn’t have anyone positioned there.” Mueller denies groping Swift and claims in his lawsuit that he was falsely accused and lost his job because of the allegation. Mueller’s lawsuit seeks up to $3 million in damages, though Mueller has said he’s not seeking a specific amount — just a chance to clear his name and salvage his career. Swift countersued, alleging sexual assault. She is seeking a symbolic $1 judgment that holds Mueller responsible. Swift said she was stunned and did not say anything to Mueller or halt the meet-and-greet after he left because she did not want to disappoint several dozen people waiting in line for photos with her. Taylor Swift’s mother testified Wednesday that she and her daughter’s managers decided to tell Mueller’s bosses that he had assaulted the singer, hoping he would be fired but not asking them to do so. Later in the day, Hershel Coomer, a supervisor at the country music station where Mueller worked, took the witness stand and denied a claim by Mueller that Coomer had said he groped Swift at an event for radio directors at Pepsi Center in Denver.