Journalist and writer Elizabeth Jane Carrol reiterated today that she was raped by former US President Donald Trump in the 1990s, in the first hearing of the civil trial which takes place in New York City.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and he destroyed my reputation. I came here to try and get my life back,” Carroll told jurors.
According to her testimony, Trump – a well-known real estate businessman at the time – invited her to go to a dressing room to try on an outfit for both of them.
“It seemed like a funny incident to me,” said the woman, who revealed that the then-businessmen stuck their fingers in their private parts when they were in the dressing room.
In this sense, Carroll -currently 79- stressed that “my only reason for being alive was to get out of there”, about the alleged incident that took place in the Bergdorf Goodman store in New York in the spring of 1996.
“It’s a fraudulent and false story: witch hunt!” Trump wrote remotely, on his Truth Social platform, since he did not appear on this first day, although he could do so in the next few days.
Though it’s been nearly thirty years since Carroll reported the incident, she was able to file a lawsuit last November under New York’s Adult Survivors Law, which allows such sexual assault complaints with the expired statute of limitations.
For his part, Trump -76 years old- faces other trials, which would undermine his goal of returning to the White House next year; he has already launched his electoral campaign and his intention to have a second term.
In addition to this trial for alleged rape, the entrepreneur is accused of using campaign funds to bribe a porn actress, with whom he allegedly had an affair; also another involving his company and his children, and his involvement in the attacks on the Capitol in January 2021, after the triumph of Joe Biden, the current US president.
