NEW YORK –
Former U.S. President Donald Trump answered questions below oath Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, {a magazine} columnist who says he raped her in the mid-Nineteen Nineties in a division retailer dressing room.
The deposition gave Carroll’s attorneys an opportunity to interrogate Trump in regards to the assault allegations, in addition to statements he made in 2019 when she instructed her story publicly for the primary time.
Details on how the deposition went weren’t instantly disclosed.
“We’re happy that on behalf of our shopper, E. Jean Carroll, we have been in a position to take Donald Trump’s deposition right this moment. We aren’t in a position to remark additional,” the legislation agency representing her, Kaplan Hecker & Fink, mentioned in an announcement.
Trump has mentioned Carroll’s rape allegation is “a hoax and a lie.”
His authorized workforce labored for years to delay his deposition in the lawsuit, which was filed when the Republican was nonetheless president. A federal decide final week rejected Trump’s request for an additional delay, saying he could not “run the clock out on plaintiff’s try to realize a treatment for what allegedly was a critical mistaken.”
Alina Habba, an lawyer representing Trump, mentioned Wednesday, “My shopper was happy to set the document straight right this moment. This case is nothing greater than a political ploy like many others in the lengthy checklist of witch hunts towards Donald Trump.”
Carroll was to have been questioned by Trump’s attorneys final Friday. Neither her attorneys nor Trump’s have responded to questions on how that deposition went.
The attorneys additionally have not disclosed whether or not Trump’s deposition was finished in particular person or remotely, over video. Trump was in Florida on Wednesday. The lawsuit is being dealt with in a court docket in New York City.
Anything Trump mentioned throughout his deposition may doubtlessly be used as proof in an upcoming civil trial. He hasn’t confronted any prison prices associated to Carroll’s allegations, and any prosecution is unlikely. The deadline for prison prices over alleged sexual assaults that occurred in the Nineteen Nineties has lengthy expired.
Similar authorized deadlines additionally utilized to civil lawsuits claiming sexual assault. As a outcome, Carroll selected to sue Trump for defamation over feedback he made in 2019 when he denied any wrongdoing. She maintains that her fame was broken by his denials and assaults on her credibility and character.
However, New York lawmakers lately gave folks a one-year window to take outdated sexual assault claims to civil courts. Carroll’s lawyer has instructed the court docket she intends to file such a swimsuit towards Trump after that window opens in late November.
According to Carroll’s account, she ran into Trump as the 2 have been procuring on the Bergdorf Goodman retailer throughout Fifth Avenue from Trump Tower. At the time, Carroll was on tv because the host of an recommendation program, “Ask E. Jean.”
She mentioned the 2 engaged in pleasant banter as she tried to assist him pick a present. But after they have been briefly alone in a dressing room, she mentioned he pulled down her tights and raped her.
In a latest assertion, Trump known as that story “a whole con job.”
“I do not know this girl, don’t know who she is, apart from it appears she acquired an image of me a few years in the past, together with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a star charity occasion,” Trump mentioned.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Michael R. Sisak contributed.