The New York writer who sued Donald Trump claiming he raped her in a department store in the 1990s lashed out at the former president’s lawyer as he grilled her on the witness stand about why she didn’t scream during the alleged attack.
(Bloomberg) — The New York writer who sued Donald Trump claiming he raped her in a department store in the 1990s lashed out at the former president’s lawyer as he grilled her on the witness stand about why she didn’t scream during the alleged attack.
“You can’t beat up on me for not screaming,” E. Jean Carroll told the lawyer, Joe Tacopina, during his cross-examination of her in Manhattan federal court on Thursday.
“I’m not beating up,” Tacopina said. “I’m asking questions.”
Carroll, a former advice columnist with Elle magazine who went public with her claim in 2019, said it wasn’t unusual for some women not to scream for help during an attack, and that the failure to understand that is one reason some don’t come forward to report a rape.
“So you didn’t scream while you were getting violently raped because you didn’t want to make a scene?” Tacopina pressed.
“That’s right,” Carroll said evenly. “I didn’t want to make a scene.”
When he pushed her further, she made a gesture of frustration, raised her voice and shot back: “He raped me whether I screamed or not!”
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Not His ‘Type’
Trump, 76, has long argued that Carroll’s allegation that he raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store decades ago was impossible to believe given her age and because she was not his “type.” He also argues there would have been witnesses and that she would have screamed, or reported him to the police afterward.
Carroll, 79, says the sixth-floor lingerie department where she alleges the attack occurred was unstaffed and all but deserted on the midweek evening when they were there, and that she didn’t report the incident because she was ashamed and because she feared Trump would try to destroy her if she spoke up.
The jurors appeared to listen intently to the exchange between Carroll and Tacopina. At another point, as he showed her excerpts of emails she had written or testimony from her pretrial deposition, several jurors leaned in and peered at the monitors in the jury box to see the documents.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all the cases against him and the probes of his conduct and called them part of a partisan effort to take him down. The trial of Carroll’s suit, the latest of his travails, has brought new attention to past claims about his treatment of women that failed to derail his 2016 presidential campaign, as he runs in the 2024 race.
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Tacopina’s cross-examination on Thursday started out less dramatically. Carroll had returned to the witness stand a little early after a short break and found herself directly opposite the lawyer, who was already standing at the podium to begin his examination. The two stared at each other briefly before Tacopina turned and began pacing the courtroom.
He offered a “good morning” and, when Carroll didn’t immediately respond, repeated it more loudly. She returned the formality.
Selling the Book
Tacopina lost no time in suggesting she had made up the attack to sell a book.
“Using your own words, the facts you allege in the story you’ve told here are odd,” he said, asking if she agreed.
“Yes, certain parts of the story are difficult to conceive of,” said Carroll. But, she added, “those are the facts.”
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Tacopina, who launched his cross by displaying the cover of Carroll’s book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, asked why she didn’t go public before Trump was elected in 2016. He suggested she timed her allegation with the publication of the 2019 book.
Carroll said she waited because her mother was elderly and she didn’t want to distress her. Tacopina then asked why she didn’t immediately go public after her mother died.
“I was in deep, painful mourning,” Carroll said.
“It had nothing to do with the fact that the book wasn’t ready yet?” he asked.
“I hadn’t conceived writing a book at that point,” she said.
Read More: Trump Trial for Rape Suit Renews Focus on Treatment of Women
Carroll testified that the 2017 New York Times expose on the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s assaults on women inspired her to add Trump’s alleged attack to the book she was already writing about her relationship with men. She agreed with Tacopina that her book pitch, which mentioned only Trump, helped her secure a $70,000 advance from the publisher but said it wasn’t all about the money.
“It caused me to realize that staying silent does not work,” she told the jury.
What Jury Must Decide
The jury of six men and three women will decide whether Trump is liable for sexually assaulting Carroll and then defaming her as recently as last year by claiming on social media that she fabricated the attack to sell the book.
If they find him liable, the jurors will then decide how much he must pay Carroll, depending on the harm they find she suffered.
Read More: Trump’s Fate in Rape Lawsuit in Hands of Librarian, Janitor
Tacopina’s Job
To defeat Carroll’s claims, Tacopina has to cast doubt on her story in the jurors’ minds.
He asked Carroll about her previous deposition testimony that she held on to her Coach bag throughout the alleged attack.
“And despite this colossal struggle, you never let go of your purse?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
He shifted to her past testimony that she got away from Trump only after pushing him away with her knee, despite wearing high heels.
“You’re saying you did all this while wearing four-inch heels?” he asked.
“I can dance forward and backward while wearing four-inch heels,” she said, seeming to get the better of him on this point.
At one point, the judge cut off Tacopina’s questioning as he pressed her on why she kept the dress she wore during the alleged attack.
“You didn’t burn it?” the lawyer asked her sarcastically.
Judge Loses Patience
Tacopina also grilled Carroll about her previous testimony that she didn’t report the alleged rape to the police because Trump was powerful and could retaliate against her.
“Instead you waited for Donald Trump to become the president of the United states — arguably the most powerful man in the world — to tell your story?” he asked incredulously.
Carroll responded that she had been silent long enough.
As he pressed her on details of her account — including whether the entrance to Bergdorf Goodman was a revolving or hinged door and why such an upscale department store would have no sales associates in the lingerie area — US District Judge Lewis Kaplan repeatedly told him to move on.
“You get to make a closing argument in this case, counsel, and this isn’t the time for it,” the judge said.
After the jury was dismissed for the day, the judge told Tacopina that several of his lines of questioning had been argumentative.
The case is Carroll v. Trump, 22-cv-10016, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
–With assistance from Patricia Hurtado, Gerry Smith and Christopher Palmeri.
(Updates with judge cutting off lawyer’s question about Carroll’s dress.)
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