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Attorneys for writer E. Jean Carroll chided Donald Trump for failing to testify in his own defense, as closing arguments concluded Monday in Carroll’s defamation and battery case against the former president.
Carroll, who brought the lawsuit in November, alleges that Trump defamed her in his 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations «a Hoax and a lie» and saying «This woman is not my type!» when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.
The former Elle magazine columnist added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations. Trump has denied all allegations that he raped Carroll or defamed her.
«There wasn’t even a ‘He said,'» Carroll’s attorney, Michael Ferrara, told the jury in his closing rebuttal. Carroll «showed up,» said Ferrara, while Trump was «nowhere to be found.»
Closing statements began with Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan telling jury members that Carroll was «was exactly» Trump’s type and that he sexually assaulted Carroll the very way he described treating women on the infamous «Access Hollywood» tape.
Kaplan once again played for the jury the excerpt of Trump’s October 2022 deposition in which he momentarily mistakes Carroll for his second wife.
«What did Mr. Trump do after I showed him that photograph?» Kaplan told the jury. «He looked at it for a moment and then, completely unprompted by me, he said, ‘It’s Marla.’ She was exactly his type!»
Kaplan asserted that Trump only corrected himself when his own lawyer jumped in after realizing how potentially damaging the statement was.
«He said the photo was blurry. But that’s the photo, ladies and gentleman,» Kaplan said, putting the 1980s-era photograph of Carroll, her then-husband John Johnson, Trump, and his then-wife Ivana Trump on the screen in the courtroom. «The truth is that E. Jean Carroll, a former cheerleader and Ms. Indiana, was exactly Donald Trump’s type.»
Kaplan juxtaposed Trump’s mistaken identification with his remarks on the «Access Hollywood» tape, on which he is heard saying about women that «I just start kissing them … I don’t even wait» and that when you’re a star you can «grab them by the p—-.»
«What is Donald Trump doing here?» Kaplan said. «He’s telling you in his own words how he treats women. It’s his modus operandi.»
The attorney also repeated what Trump said during his deposition about how stars get away with the conduct. «Well that’s what, if you look over the last million years, I guess that’s been largely true.
