Donald Trump slammed a woman against a wall in a Midtown department store in the mid-1990s, raped her, and then sought to “destroy and humiliate” her when she came forward, a Manhattan jury heard in opening arguments Tuesday in writer E. Jean Carroll’s bombshell civil rape case against the former president.
Delivering opening arguments at Carroll’s Manhattan Federal Court trial against Trump, Shawn Crowley described her client’s encounter with Trump in the spring of 1996, which began as was walking out of Bergdorf Goodman in Midtown Manhattan.
“They started chatting. Trump asked Ms. Carroll to help him pick out a gift for a woman. She agreed, thinking it would make for a funny story,” Crowley said.
After making their way up to the empty sixth floor to the lingerie department on the escalators, Trump walked over to the counter, picked up a lace bodysuit, and tossed it to Carroll. Crowley said they joked about trying it on.
“Still laughing, they moved to the dressing room, with Carroll thinking, he might actually try on this lingerie,” Crowley said.
“The moment they went inside, everything changed. Suddenly, nothing was funny. Donald Trump slammed Ms. Carroll against the wall. He pressed his lips against hers. She struggled to break free but couldn’t. Trump was almost twice her size. He held down her arm, pulled down her tights and then he sexually assaulted her,” Crowley said.
“He was a big man — had easily 100 pounds on her. And he was determined,” Crowley later said, describing the sexual assault and rape in graphic detail.
Crowley said Carroll, who plans to testify at the trial, escaped after a few minutes and fled the store onto Fifth Avenue.
Crowley’s opening argument came hours after a panel of six men and three women were selected to serve as jurors. Carroll arrived at the courthouse just before 9 a.m. Trump did not turn up for the first day of his case.
Tacopina was expected to deliver his opening argument later in the afternoon. He told the Us.Mistertruth Trump is unlikely to attend the trial.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan told jurors their identities would remain anonymous if they were selected. He advised them not to tell each other their real names. They will be escorted to and from the courthouse by U.S. Marshals while the case plays out.
Kaplan advised the panelists not to tell their friends or family what case they’re judging if they are selected. In ruling the jury would be anonymous, the judge previously cited statements Trump has made attacking officials involved in his various legal cases and their potential to incite violence and civil unrest.
“The goal is to protect you in every way,” Kaplan said.
Carroll, 79, a former advice columnist for the magazine Elle, has waited five years to make her case to a jury.
Carroll’s initial 2019 suit against Trump is still tied up with appeals. The case now on trial was filed in November as the first brought under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, historic legislation that lifted the statute of limitations to bring sexual assault claims for one year.
Carroll has said she was never intimate with a man again after the disturbing encounter with Trump, which she kept quiet about for decades out of fear he would ruin her reputation. Friends she told in the aftermath are slated to testify, as are two women who have accused Trump of sexual assault.
Judge Kaplan told the prospective jurors they would be tasked with determining what did or didn’t happen at the department store, whether Carroll was raped or sexually assaulted, and whether and to what extent she should be compensated.
The case is one in a litany of legal challenges facing Trump as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination. He has been hit with 34 felony charges related to the infamous hush money payment to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. And he is being sued by the New York attorney general for rampant business fraud.
He is also being criminally investigated in Georgia for trying to subvert the 2020 election and by special counsel Jack Smith for taking classified documents from the White House.