Possible Trump testimony in sex abuse defamation trial postponed due to juror illness

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump could testify as soon as Monday (Jan. 22, 2024) in his defamation trial for calling sexual assault accuser E. Jean Carroll a liar. But the judge has ruled that if Trump takes the stand, he won’t be allowed to say that the writer concocted her allegation, nor that she was motivated by financial or political considerations. That’s because a different jury found last year that Trump sexually abused Carroll. Last week, Trump was threatened with expulsion from court for making comments about what he called a “con job.” AP typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has told the public for years what he thinks of E. Jean Carroll, the writer who claims he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s. Now he has a chance to talk to a jury about her — but within limits he might well test.

Trump could testify as soon as Monday (Jan. 22, 2024) in the defamation trial over his 2019 comments branding Carroll a liar who faked a sexual attack to sell a memoir. He plans to be in court as the New York trial resumes after a weekend break.

Because a different jury found last year that Trump sexually abused Carroll, U.S. District Judge Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has ruled that if the former president takes the stand now, he won’t be allowed to say she concocted her allegation or that she was motivated by financial or political considerations.

But even while just watching the proceedings, the voluble ex-president and current Republican front-runner hasn’t checked his contempt for the case.

While Carroll testified last week, he complained to his lawyers about a “witch hunt” and a “con job” loudly enough so that the judge threatened to throw Trump out of the courtroom if he kept it up. Trump piped down and stayed in court, then held a news conference where he deplored the “nasty judge.”

“It’s a disgrace, frankly, what’s happening,” Trump told reporters, repeating his claim that Carroll’s allegation was “a made-up, fabricated story.”

Besides tangling with Kaplan, Trump bucked the New York state judge in his recent civil business fraud trial involving claims that he inflated his wealth. Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, delivered a brief closing argument of sorts without committing to rules for summations and assailed the judge from the witness stand. He also was fined a total of $15,000 for what the judge deemed violations of a gag order concerning comments about court staffers. Trump’s attorneys are appealing the order.

In Carroll’s case, her lawyers have implored the judge to make Trump swear, before any testimony, that he understands and accepts the court’s restrictions on what he can say.

“There are any number of reasons why Mr. Trump might perceive a personal or political benefit from intentionally turning this trial into a circus,” attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote in a letter to the judge, who is no relation.

Trump is contending with four criminal cases as well as the civil fraud case and Carroll’s lawsuit as the presidential primary season gets into gear. He has been juggling court and campaign appearances, using both to argue that he’s being persecuted by Democrats terrified of his possible election.

Trump is expected to travel after Monday’s court session to an evening campaign event in New Hampshire, which holds its Republican presidential primary Tuesday.

His trips to court at times also have amplified media coverage of developments that he likes — such as an accounting professor’s testimony for Trump’s defense in the fraud trial — and his criticisms of developments that he doesn’t.

He regularly addressed the news cameras waiting outside the fraud trial in a New York state court. Cameras aren’t allowed in the federal courthouse where the Carroll trial is taking place, so he at one point left and held a news conference at one of his New York buildings even as his accuser continued testifying against him.

“I’m here because Donald Trump assaulted me, and when I wrote about it, he said it never happened. He lied, and he shattered my reputation,” Carroll, a former longtime Elle magazine advice columnist, told jurors and Trump while he was still in court.

Trump doesn’t have to attend or give testimony in the civil case. He stayed away last year from the prior trial, where a different jury awarded Carroll $5 million after deciding that Trump sexually abused her in 1996 and made defamatory comments about her in 2022. Trump is appealing that verdict.

For complex legal reasons, Carroll’s defamation claims were divided between two lawsuits. Hence the second trial, where she’s seeking over $10 million in damages.

Trump has said his lawyers advised him not to dignify the first trial by attending it. He’s attending the second one, he’s said, because of what he views as the judge’s animus.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba told the court in a letter that he might take the stand because, even with the judge’s restrictions, “he can still offer considerable testimony in his defense.”

Among other things, he can testify about his state of mind when he made the statements that got him sued and about how his comments came as Carroll was doing media interviews and journalists were asking him about her, Habba wrote.

She also suggested he could “show his lack of ill will or spite” by talking about how he “corrected” his initial denial of having ever met Carroll.

The revision happened after a reporter called Trump’s attention to a 1987 photo of him, Carroll and their then-spouses at a charity event. Trump responded that he was “standing with my coat on in a line — give me a break.”

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

NEW YORK (AP) — Jury selection has begun in a New York courtroom after a judge denied Donald Trump’s request that his defamation trial be adjourned on Thursday so the former president can attend the funeral of his mother-in-law. The denial came Tuesday (Jan. 16, 2024) during a combative exchange between lawyers for Trump and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan over evidence in the case, Trump’s desire to attend the Thursday funeral and even whether the trial should occur at all. The trial is the penalty phase of a civil defamation trial stemming from columnist E. Jean Carroll claims he sexually attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996. A May trial found Trump sexually abused Carroll, awarding her $5 million. He has appealed.

NEW YORK (AP) — Jury selection began in a New York courtroom Tuesday (Jan. 16, 2024) after a judge denied Donald Trump’s request that a defamation trial stemming from a columnist’s claims that he sexually abused her in the 1990s be suspended on Thursday so he could attend the funeral of his mother-in-law.

The denial came during a combative exchange between lawyers for Trump and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan over evidence in the case, Trump’s desire to attend the Thursday funeral and whether the trial should occur at all.

This is the penalty phase of a civil defamation trial stemming from columnist E. Jean Carroll’s claims he sexually attacked her in a department store dressing room. A May trial found Trump sexually abused Carroll, awarding her $5 million. Trump did not attend that trial but he showed up Tuesday morning after his political victory at the Iowa caucus hours earlier.

After several dozen prospective jurors were sworn in, Trump shook his head as Kaplan described the case in general terms and explained that for purposes of the trial, it had already been determined that Trump “did sexually assault Ms. Carroll.”

Trump also twisted his body around in his chair to look at a prospective juror who said she had worked in a communications capacity for his daughter’s company in 2017 and 2018. Another prospective juror said he’s a lawyer who has worked on unrelated issues with the firm representing Carroll. Both said they could be fair and impartial and remained among prospective jurors.

In May, a different jury awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding that Trump sexually abused her in a department store dressing room in spring 1996, then defamed her in 2022 by claiming she made it up after she revealed it publicly in a 2019 memoir. The jury said Carroll hadn’t proven that Trump raped her.

Trump is appealing and hasn’t paid any of that award, though he placed $5.55 million in escrow to cover the verdict and other costs in the event he loses his appeal.

One issue that wasn’t decided in that first trial was how much Trump owed for comments he made about Carroll while he was still president.

Determining that dollar amount will be the new jury’s only job.

Kaplan ruled last year that the new jury didn’t need to decide anew whether Carroll was sexually abused or whether Trump’s remarks about her were defamatory since those subjects were covered in the first trial.

Even before jurors were brought in to the courtroom Tuesday, Trump attorney Michael Madaio complained that the judge had made “inconsistent and unfair” rulings against Trump prior to the start of the trial.

Madaio said the rulings “drastically changed our ability to defend this case and largely stripped us of our defenses.”

He also argued that given Trump’s pending appeal of the first verdict, the trial should not proceed at all.

Another Trump attorney, Alina Habba, then requested that the trial be adjourned on Thursday for the funeral of former first lady Melania Trump’s mother, Amalija Knavs.

“I am not stopping him from being there,” the judge said, referring to the funeral.

Habba responded: “No, you’re stopping him from being here.”

The judge, though, said the only accommodation he would make is that Trump can testify on Monday, even if the trial is otherwise finished by Thursday. Several days ago, Kaplan rejected Trump’s request to delay the trial a week.

Trump arrived for the trial in a motorcade shortly before 9 a.m., entering the building through a special entrance not usually used by the public. Opening arguments could take place by afternoon in what is essentially a second penalty phase of a legal fight Carroll has already won.

Trump arrived separately but at the same time as Carroll Tuesday. His plans for the rest of the week have become unclear because of his mother-in-law’s pending funeral. Prospective jurors were told the trial was likely to last three to five days.

Habba told the judge that Trump plans to testify. The judge has already set strict limits on what he can talk about. He did not attend last year’s trial, saying recently that his lawyer advised against it.

Because the trial is supposed to be focused only on how much Trump owes Carroll, the judge has warned Trump and his lawyers that they cannot say things to jurors that he has said on the campaign trail or elsewhere, like claiming she lied about him to promote her memoir.

Kaplan also banned them from saying anything about Carroll’s “past romantic relationships, sexual disposition, and prior sexual experiences,” from suggesting Trump didn’t sexually abuse Carroll or from implying she was motivated by “a political agenda, financial interests, mental illness, or otherwise.”

They are also banned, the judge said, from advancing any argument inconsistent with the court’s ruling that “Mr. Trump, with actual malice, lied about sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll.”

Those restrictions don’t apply outside of the presence of the jury. That has left Trump free to continue posting on social media about all of the above topics — something he has done repeatedly in recent days — although each fresh denial comes with the possibility of increasing damages he must pay.

Carroll, 80, plans to testify about the damage to her career and reputation that resulted from Trump’s public statements. She seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and millions more in punitive damages.

Trump, 77, is appealing the findings of last year’s jury and has continued to maintain that he doesn’t know Carroll, that he never met her at the Bergdorf Goodman store in midtown Manhattan in spring 1996 and that Carroll made up her claims to sell her book and for political reasons.

Regardless of his losses in court, Trump leads all Republicans in 2024 presidential primary polls and plans to spend plenty of time in court fighting the civil cases and four criminal cases against him, saying, “In a way, I guess you consider it part of the campaign.”