Trump won’t testify in E. Jean Carroll rape and defamation trial

Former President Donald Trump gained’t testify within the civil trial over allegations he raped author E. Jean Carroll within the Nineteen Nineties

Trump attorneys didn’t subject a submitting by the 5 p.m. deadline that Choose Lewis Kaplan set for them to inform the courtroom if the previous president wished to testify. Closing arguments within the trial are set to start at 10 a.m. Monday.

Legal professionals for Trump and Carroll rested their case within the civil trial final week. Kaplan left open the chance for Trump, who had stated he wouldn’t seem in particular person, to take the witness stand in his personal protection, giving him till 5 p.m. Sunday to alter his thoughts. The trial now strikes to closing arguments Monday.

Trump attorneys stated final week that their consumer is not going to testify and that they aren’t placing on any witnesses — a position Trump attorney Joe Tacopina reiterated on the finish of courtroom Thursday when he rested. He instructed the decide that he’d spoken to Trump on Thursday morning and that Trump had waived his proper to testify.

Trump, nevertheless, instructed reporters on a golf course in Eire final week that he was “going again to New York” due to the case.

Requested whether or not he was going to the trial, he stated, “I’ll in all probability attend,” based on a Sky News video of his remarks. “She’s a pretend,” he stated of Carroll. “It’s a shame.”

Carroll sued Trump for battery and defamation, alleging he raped her within the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman retailer in Manhattan within the mid-Nineteen Nineties after which falsely accused her of creating claims that quantity to a “hoax” and a “con job” after she went public with the allegations in 2019. Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations.