E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers to play ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes in civil rape trial against Donald Trump

NEW YORK – A New York City judge said on Friday that E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers may call two women who accuse Trump of sexual misconduct as witnesses in her upcoming civil rape trial and play the infamous “Access Hollywood” tapes for the jury.

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan gave the green light to all of Carroll’s requests in a 23-page ruling.

Carroll, who is suing Trump for defamation and sexual battery, alleges he raped her at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in the mid-1990s. Trump has denied the allegations.

Kaplan found the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged that his fame gave him license to grope women, relevant to the case.

“(A) jury could reasonably find, even from the Access Hollywood tapes alone, that Mr. Trump admitted on the Access Hollywood tapes that he had in fact had genital contact with women without their consent in the past, or that he had attempted to do so,” Kaplan’s decision read. there is

The lawyer disagreed with Trump’s lawyers’ argument that allegations of sexual misconduct by two other women — Natasha Steinoff and Jessica Leeds — should not be included in trial testimony.

“Mr. Trump’s attempts to downplay the similarities between his alleged actions with regard to Ms. Leeds and Ms. Steinoff on the one hand and Ms. Carroll on the other are not very persuasive. The alleged actions are more similar than they are different in important respects. In each case, the alleged victim claims that Mr. Trump suddenly targeted her. sexually assaulted,” Kaplan wrote.

“In the case of Mrs. Carroll and Mrs. Stoynoff, he allegedly did so in a location after closing a door behind her, which gave her privacy. In all three cases he allegedly did so without consent. So it is only in the case of Mrs. Leeds that the difference is an important one. There is — the fact that the alleged assault took place on an airplane in circumstances where, despite both her and Mr. Trump being in the bulkhead seats, afforded little privacy.”

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina declined to comment on the decision, as did Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan.

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