Joseph Tacopina, lawyer of former President Donald Trump, questions E. Jean Carroll before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan as Carroll’s deposition plays on a monitor in New York, May 1, 2023, in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
A lawyer for former President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will not present any witnesses at the civil trial for a lawsuit accusing Trump of raping writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and defaming her last fall when he again denied her claim.
Trump’s attorney Joseph Tacopina told Judge Lewis Kaplan the one expert witness he planned to call to the witness stand is unable to testify due to a health issue.
On Tuesday, Tacopina said Trump would not testify before the jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Trump has not appeared in court since the trial began last week.
But the presumptive frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination was in Scotland on Monday to break ground for a new golf course.
A videotape of Trump’s deposition for the case might be played later Wednesday for jurors.
The tape includes footage from the so-called “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump bragged to the show’s then-host Billy Bush about groping and kissing women without their consent.
“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump says on the tape, recorded in 2005 when he was taping a segment of the television show “Access Hollywood.”
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. “Grab ’em by the p—-,” Trump said.
Carroll’s sister, Cande Carroll, was due to take the witness stand, followed by Natasha Stoynoff, who claims Trump assaulted her at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005.
Kaplan told jurors Wednesday they will start deliberations in the case next week.
Carroll’s lawyers expect to rest their case on Thursday.
Carroll, 79, alleges Trump raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department…
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