(New York) A civil lawsuit for defamation against Donald Trump opens Tuesday in New York, a former American journalist, E. Jean Carroll, accusing the ex-president of the United States of having raped her in the 1990s .
The proceedings, in the almost certain absence of Mr. Trump, will begin in Manhattan Federal Civil Court once the jury has been selected, which will have to determine the amount of reparations to be awarded to this former columnist of the magazine. Shenow 79 years old.
It is a delicate legal case – for alleged defamation on the background of allegations of rape – which has opposed since 2019 Mme Carroll to Mr. Trump, the billionaire ex-president, surrounded by court cases, including a historic criminal indictment in early April in New York for 34 accounting and tax frauds.
At 76, the former tenant of the White House (2017-2021) dreams of being re-elected in November 2024.
Mme Carroll accuses Mr Trump of raping her in a New York department store fitting room in 1995 or 1996.
Having chosen civil proceedings for defamation in November 2019, she then filed a complaint against Mr. Trump because he had called the rape allegations in June of the same year a “complete lie”.
The Republican president, at the time, always replied that Mr.me Carroll was “not his kind of woman” and his lawyers claimed he was protected, in 2019, by his head of state immunity.
As for the rape charges, Ms.me Carroll had not been able to file a complaint in 2019 since the alleged facts were prescribed.
However, on November 24, 2022, a law of the State of New York came into force (“ Adult Survivors Act “) allowing, for one year, victims of sexual assault to relaunch their civil legal action.
Mme Carroll therefore filed a new civil complaint in November in New York for “defamation” but also “assault” and “assault” and demanded a trial for damages, his lawyers accusing, in the complaint, Mr. Trump of “grossing, groping and raping her”.
The civil trial, which could last one to two weeks, was due to open on April 10 but was pushed back to Tuesday.
The two protagonists had produced their sworn depositions in October.
During his testimony by video link, made public by justice in January, Donald Trump had reaffirmed his line of defense: “I will say it with the greatest respect: first, she is not my type; then it never happened”.
But, funny, in front of a photo where he appeared with Mme Carroll at a reception in the 1990s, Mr. Trump then confused her with his former wife, actress Marla Maples, 59, to whom he was married from 1993 to 1999.