NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s attorneys mentioned Wednesday that they won’t name any witnesses on the New York civil trial arising from author E. Jean Carroll’s claims that the previous president raped her within the mid-Nineteen Nineties.
Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina mentioned they determined to not placed on a protection case after studying that well being points have been stopping their knowledgeable witness, a psychiatrist, from testifying. Tacopina beforehand disclosed that Trump wouldn’t testify on the trial, in federal court docket in Manhattan.
Carroll’s attorneys mentioned they may end presenting their case on Thursday.
They listed 5 remaining witnesses, together with a former Folks journal author who says Trump pinned her in opposition to a wall and forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida in 2005, an allegation he denies.
Additionally they plan on enjoying excerpts of a sworn deposition that Trump gave in reference to Carroll’s lawsuit, in addition to a the 2005 “Entry Hollywood” tape through which Trump boasted about grabbing ladies’s genitals.
Trump denies ever touching ladies in opposition to their will and has mentioned that Carroll’s claims are politically motivated makes an attempt to smear his fame and deny him the White Home.
His attorneys attacked Carroll’s credibility by way of exhaustive cross-examination, questioning why she didn’t scream out for assist throughout the alleged assault and why she by no means went to police.
A psychologist testifying on Carroll’s behalf testified Wednesday that it’s frequent for rape victims to fall silent and blame themselves.
The case isn’t being heard on Fridays, which means that jurors may hear closing arguments and begin deliberating subsequent week.
“I believe you possibly can moderately anticipate to get the case early subsequent week,” Decide Lewis Kaplan advised jurors.
Earlier Wednesday, a medical psychologist employed by Carroll’s attorneys testified that Carroll exhibits frequent indicators of trauma and has been in a position to transfer on along with her life partly by blaming herself and leaning into her exuberant public persona.
Psychologist Leslie Lebowitz mentioned Carroll has averted intimate relationships, generally shutting down throughout dates, and sometimes finds herself keeping off “intrusive recollections” of what she says Trump did to her in a dressing room at a luxurious Manhattan division retailer.
Testifying for a second day, Lebowitz relayed many years of medical experience and her observations of Carroll throughout interviews in preparation for trial. Carroll testified final week that Lebowitz is the one psychological well being skilled she’s spoken with because the alleged sexual assault.
“For a few years, she simply merely blamed herself for the assault, thought she simply did one thing silly and that’s why it occurred,” Lebowitz mentioned.
For 17 years, Carroll didn’t converse publicly concerning the occasion. However in a 2019 memoir, she described how a generally flirtatious probability encounter with Trump on the retailer in spring 1996 ended with violence when Trump cornered her in a dressing room after they challenged one another to strive on a chunk of lingerie.
Carroll is an “extraordinarily resilient individual,” Lebowitz mentioned, explaining that her persona as a preferred Elle journal recommendation columnist and her Midwest upbringing mixed to steer her to attempt to preserve her expertise with Trump secret.
“It made her really feel she was nugatory. She felt degraded, diminished,” Lebowitz mentioned. “Ms. Carroll, like most of us in some ways, doesn’t wish to be a sufferer, doesn’t wish to be pitied. However greater than most individuals, she is fiercely recognized as … the one who can march on … and put it behind you.”
Nonetheless, the psychologist mentioned, there have been occasions when she was practically overcome along with her recollections, like when she first noticed a trailer for Trump’s TV present, “The Apprentice.”
“She turned so flooded with recollections, emotions, a way of panic, that she really misplaced her capability to talk,” Lebowitz mentioned.
Lebowitz mentioned Carroll generally “experiences intrusive bodily remembrances” through which recollections of the assault come “spooling like a video earlier than her.”
At one level, Lebowitz mentioned, she was talking with Carroll and observed that “she started to squirm in her seat as a result of she was experiencing Mr. Trump’s fingers within her or what she alleges to be Mr. Trump’s fingers within her.”