Carroll says no ‘coordinated conspiracy’ for Trump rape claims in closing arguments
Kaelan Deese
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Closing arguments began Monday in the defamation trial brought against Donald Trump, prompting his sexual assault accuser’s counsel to preliminary rebut the former president’s defense that there is a “coordinated conspiracy” to take him down.
Former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll is suing Trump for unspecified damages over allegations that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s. Her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, sought to cast doubt on Trump’s defense that “there is a vast conspiracy against him.”
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“Donald Trump wants and needs you to disregard all the evidence that you heard in this case. … Does that make any sense here at all?” Kaplan asked.
Kaplan sought to summarize the various accounts from other women who were called to the stand throughout the length of the trial, women who said Trump also sexually assaulted them in different scenarios throughout the decades.
“Three different women, decades apart, but one single pattern of behavior,” Kaplan said, seeking to claim patterns of such behavior became Trump’s modus operandi. “In that respect, what happened to E. Jean Carroll is not unique.”
From the beginning of the trial, Carroll’s legal team has said the case is not a he-said, she-said issue and that the nine-member jury does not have to rely on Carroll alone to find Trump liable.
Kaplan also sought to poke holes in questions that Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina asked in order to cast doubt on Carroll’s allegations. Tacopina asked Carroll on the witness stand why she did not scream during the alleged attack, and Kaplan reminded jurors that expert witness Dr. Leslie Lebowitz, a clinical psychologist, said screaming “is one of the least likely things that actually occur.”
While Carroll brought in past accusers, played Trump’s taped deposition, and called in expert witnesses, Trump’s defense team notably abstained from calling any assistance to back the former president.
Trump even missed his deadline on Sunday to say he would come and testify in defense of himself. Trump went back and forth on whether he would attend the trial, and District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is unrelated to Carroll’s attorney, imposed a 5 p.m. Sunday deadline for Trump to decide before closing arguments began on Monday.
The defense is slated to make their closing arguments for two hours beginning at noon on Monday.
Meanwhile, outside journalists and interested parties have asked the judge to release exhibits the defense played during the trial after the judge allowed the roughly 45-minute taped deposition of Trump to be released on Friday.
Kaplan concluded her closing arguments by saying that Carroll had made consistent and clear testimony last week and that there’s overwhelming evidence to establish Trump sexually assaulted her and defamed her when he denied it publicly.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you how much you should award,” Kaplan said, asking the jury to consider that millions of people heard and likely believed Trump’s statement about Carroll.
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The jury is composed of six men and three women. It would only take one disagreeing juror to avoid holding Trump liable.
Trump’s accuser sued for defamation in December and tacked on a battery allegation after New York passed a law allowing a one-year window for adult victims of sexual offenses to file civil suits after the statute of limitations on their claims had expired.