E. Jean Carroll and two other women will testify in the battery and defamation trial against former President Donald Trump to show Trump’s pattern of alleged violent behavior, Carroll’s attorney told jurors during opening statements on Tuesday.
“Three women, one clear pattern,” Shawn Crowley said. “Pounce, kiss, grab, grope, don’t wait. When you’re a star you can do anything you want. And when they speak up about what happened, attack, humiliate them, call them liars. Call them too ugly to assault.”
Carroll is suing Trump for battery and defamation, alleging that he raped her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in the spring of 1996 and then defamed her years later when she went public with the allegations. A jury was seated Tuesday and the first witnesses will appear beginning Wednesday.
“You’ll hear from Ms. Carroll herself,” Crowley said. “She’ll testify about the allegations and how Donald Trump responded with vicious lies meant to destroy her.”
Carroll will candidly acknowledge the shame she felt about the alleged assault and her decision not to come forward sooner. “How could she tell the world that she had been dumb enough to go into a dressing room with Donald Trump,” Carroll thought to herself, according to her attorney.
At the time Carroll didn’t view Trump as dangerous, but a “character” and “a man about town,” Crowley said.
Jurors won’t have to base their decision solely on Carroll’s testimony, the attorney said, because two friends to Carroll will corroborate her account and two former Bergdorf Goodman employees who worked at the store in 1996 will corroborate details of Carroll’s account. They’ll testify that they personally saw Trump shop at Bergdorf Goodman several times during that time period, a fact Trump has previously contested.
Trump’s…
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