(New York) Donald Trump’s civil defamation trial brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, against a backdrop of rape accusations in the 1990s, ends Friday with final arguments, in the presence of the former president of the United States.
The New York businessman left his Trump Tower in Manhattan to go in a convoy of limousines to the courthouse in the south of the island, according to an AFP photographer.
The trial in federal court, which began on January 16, is due to end with final arguments from lawyers for the plaintiff and the defense.
Nothing says that the jury will make its decision immediately.
He will have to determine whether Mr. Trump, 77, is responsible for defamation against Mr.me Carroll, 80, who is seeking at least $10 million in compensation for moral and professional harm.
PHOTO BRENDAN MCDERMID, REUTERS
E. Jean Carroll
E. Jean Carroll is a former columnist for the American edition of the magazine She who accused Donald Trump of rape in 1996 in a fitting room of a New York department store.
Last May, the same court, seized by another complaint from Mme Carroll, had civilly sentenced the mogul to five million dollars in damages for sexual assault 28 years ago and defamatory comments against her in 2022.
On Thursday, the ex-president briefly defended himself at the trial but his freedom of speech was strictly limited by the judge to avoid any verbal slippage.
The big favorite of the Republican primary for the presidential election simply indicated with a “yes” that he had made the remarks targeted by a first complaint in 2019 against accusations of rape that had just been launched, for the first time publicly, E . Jean Carroll in a book.
“She said something that I considered to be false,” Mr. Trump said.
But again on Wednesday, he launched 37 written attacks against M on his Truth Social platform.me Carroll whom he continues to denigrate and insult by calling her “crazy”, with a “phony story”, which he has “never seen of [sa] life “. “She is sick,” he repeated during his testimony in 2022.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the first trial in May 2023, ordered that this second only focus on Donald Trump’s comments and not on the complainant’s accusations of rape.
Including this case, Mr. Trump is the subject of six criminal or civil trials this year.