Magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll arrives for her civil trial against former President Donald Trump at Manhattan Federal Court on May 08, 2023 in New York City.
Stephanie Keith | Getty Images
A lawyer for writer E. Jean Carroll told jurors on Monday that Donald Trump followed a “playbook” he had for kissing and groping women without their consent before raping Carroll in the locker room of a New York City department store in the mid-1990s.
“You have to hold him accountable for what he did,” Carroll’s attorney Robert Kaplan said. She delivered closing argument before jurors in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan for a civil trial in which Trump, the leading Republican 2024 presidential candidate, is charged with assault and defamation of the writer.
Kaplan showed jurors an excerpt from the “Access Hollywood” tape, when Trump bragged in 2005 about touching women without their consent.
“I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kissing. I’m not even waiting. And when you’re a star, they let you. You can do anything. Grab them by the p– – y. You can do anything,” Trump said on the tape, recorded for an appearance on that entertainment show.
Kaplan told jurors, “What is he doing here, he’s telling you in his own words his modus operandi, his MO…he kissed them without their consent.”
“The evidence overwhelmingly shows that he followed that playbook and in the locker room he caught [Carroll] by the p—y,” she said.
In his deposition in the case, Trump told Kaplan that “unfortunately or fortunately” for “millions of years” stars have been able to sexually grope women without asking permission first.
Former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll watches the video deposition of former US President Donald Trump unfold in court during a civil trial where Carroll accuses the former US President in a civil lawsuit of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, and of defamation, in New York City on May 4, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
“He actually used the word ‘luckily’ to describe a sexual assault,” Kaplan told jurors.
“Who would say, ‘fortunately?’ Someone who thinks he’s a star, he thinks stars like him can get away with it,” Kaplan said.
Carroll testified earlier in the trial that the former president raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan after having a chance encounter at that store.
Trump, 76, denies raping Carroll, now 79, and accused her of making up the story for political and financial reasons.
He also repeatedly said that Carroll was “not my type”.
But Kaplan showed jurors on Monday a video of Trump’s deposition last fall. He was asked about a photo of him, Carroll, her then-husband, and Ivana Trump, Trump’s then-wife, at a 1980s event.
“It’s Marla,” Trump says on that tape of the photo, identifying Carroll as his other ex-wife, Marla Maples.
Kaplan told jurors on Monday: “He pointed to Ms. Carroll who he says is not his type and mistook her for Marla Maples.”
Carroll “is exactly his type and he said it twice and only changed when his lawyer pointed it out,” Kaplan said. “He made up an excuse for why he made a mistake, saying it was fuzzy, and you know it’s not fuzzy at all… E. Jean Carroll is a former cheerleader for the Indiana was exactly his type.”
An image that was tendered as an exhibit in the Carroll v. Trump where former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accuses former US President Donald Trump in a civil lawsuit of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and defamation , which was obtained by Reuters on May 5, 2023.
EJ Carroll Legal Team Document | via Reuters
Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, is due to give his closing argument later Monday.
Trump, unlike Carroll, did not appear in person for the trial.
The judge handling the case had given Tacopina until Sunday afternoon to reverse his decision not to call Trump to testify in his own defense. But that deadline passed without the lawyer telling the judge that Trump would speak on Monday.
Trump, who is the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was criminally charged last month by the Manhattan District Attorney for allegedly falsifying business documents related to a 2016 silent payment that his attorney for the era had paid to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, before the election that year.
He pleaded not guilty in this case.
Trump also faces multiple criminal investigations for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden, and for failing to return government records, many of them classified, when he left the House. White.
