E. Jean Carroll was “exactly” Donald Trump’s type, and the former president didn’t show up at her civil trial accusing him of rape because “he knows what he did” to her, her attorney alleged in closing arguments Monday in Manhattan federal court.
Speaking to the six-man, three-woman jury, Roberta Kaplan played video from the former president’s October deposition in the case, where he looked at a picture of Carroll from the late 1980s and identified it as a photo of model Marla Maples, Trump’s second wife.
Trump had said in his deposition and in public statements after Carroll accused him of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store that he wouldn’t have done so because she was “not my type.”
“In other words, she wasn’t attractive enough to sexually assault,” Kaplan told the jury.
After the mistake was pointed out to Trump by his lawyer, he said the picture was “blurry.” Kaplan displayed it for the jury. “It’s not at all blurry,” she said, and Carroll was “exactly his type.”
She also played jurors a portion of the notorious “Access Hollywood“ video, where Trump was caught on a hot mic saying he kisses and gropes women without their consent because “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
“He is telling you, in his own words, his modus operandi, his M.O.,” Kaplan said.
She then played a portion of the deposition where she’d asked him about whether his comment about stars was true.
“Well, that’s what — if you look over the last million years, I guess that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately,” Trump said.
Kaplan told the jury, “He actually used the word ‘fortunately’ describing sexual assault.”
“Who would say fortunately?” the lawyer added. “Someone who thinks they are a star. He thinks stars like him can get away with it.”
Carroll is suing Trump for battery stemming from the alleged rape inside of a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman’s department store in the mid-1990s, and for defamation for claiming she was perpetrating a hoax after she came forward with her allegations in 2019.
Trump has denied Carroll’s sexual assault allegation and maintains he didn’t defame her because he was telling the truth. His lawyer is expected to give his closing statement later Monday.
Trump decided not to testify in the case, and his lawyers did not present any witnesses, which Kaplan noted to the jury. Trump did not show up, she said, because he “knows what he did.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
