Then-President Donald Trump “unleashed his supporters” against E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault, including some who said she should be raped and murdered, her lawyer argued Tuesday.
“How much money will it take to stop it? Because he hasn’t stopped,” Carroll’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, told a Manhattan federal jury in his opening statements in Trump’s second defamation trial involving the plaintiff.
But Trump’s lawyer, in her own filings, asserted that Carroll is enjoying her new status as an “anti-Trump celebrity” and should not be entitled to any damages stemming from his alleged lies about her.
The former president, 77, had already been sentenced in a previous trial to pay $5 million to the “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist after the jury found him responsible for sexually abusing her in a fitting room. of Bergdorf Goodman in 1996 and then defaming her by writing online in 2022 that her claims were a “complete scam.”
This latest defamation case involves similar comments Trump made against Carroll after she went public with the alleged attack in 2019.
A judge already ruled that Trump defamed Carroll in 2019. The jury is now deciding how much he should pay him for it. His side is seeking more than 10 million dollars.
“He was president,” Crowley said of comments Trump made allegedly egging his Carroll loyalists on. “And when he spoke, the world listened.
“I had the biggest microphone on the planet. And the following week he used it to destroy her reputation, to defame her,” the lawyer alleged.
Crowley said the real estate mogul, who is running for president again, did this in a series of “vicious attacks” against Carroll beginning on June 22, 2019, when he denied meeting the now 80-year-old woman and assaulted her. verbally. .
Donald Trump “unleashed his supporters” against E. Jean Carroll for claiming he sexually assaulted her, and some of his loyalists said she should die, his lawyers argued during Tuesday’s openings. Gregorio P. Mango
“He said he had no idea who she was,” Crowley said. “He accused her of lying and making up a story to make money… and he threatened her. He said she should pay a heavy price for speaking out against her.”
Trump “unleashed his followers to pursue her online, to attack her character, to threaten her life,” the lawyer said.
After Trump’s public statements in speeches and online, Carroll received messages calling her “ugly,” saying she should be jailed and raped, and others “threatening that she should die, all because she had the courage to speak out about what Donald Trump had done to her,” Crowley said.
This ruined Carroll’s journalistic reputation and caused her to live in fear, even to this day, the lawyer said.
Trump, while president, denied knowing Carroll and attacked his credibility, Carroll’s lawyer said. REUTERS
“He is afraid, afraid that one day someone will make good on his threats,” Crowley.
The attorney said her client is asking the jury to award her a “very significant” amount of money because of the consequences on Carroll’s life over the past four years.
But Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, later argued that Carroll has suffered “no harm” and is actually thriving after going public with her allegations.
“She doesn’t want to fix her reputation, ladies and gentlemen. She likes the new brand of hers,” Habba said of Carroll.
Habba said the alleged harm Carroll suffered consists of “bad tweets from Twitter trolls…and he wants my client to pay for his actions.”
“Regardless of some nasty tweets, Ms. Carroll is now more famous than she has ever been in her life,” Habba said.
And anyway, Trump was “simply defending himself” when he made the public comments about her,” the lawyer said.
Trump was not in court as Crowley delivered the impassioned remarks to the nine-person jury, which included a doctor, a publicist and a banker, although the former commander in chief was in the lower Manhattan courtroom during the selection. jury that same day.
“He sat in this court this morning. And while he was sitting there, he posted more defamatory statements, more lies… 22 posts today alone,” Crowley noted. “Think about that, think about that when you consider how much money it will take to get it to stop.”
Trump was in court in the morning, but not during the opening statements. AP
Just before and during Trump’s time sitting in the courtroom that morning, he posted a series of messages on Truth Social about Carroll, including one that said, “Can you believe I have to defend myself against this woman’s false story ?
The trial is expected to last a week, and jurors will hear the infamous recording of Trump bragging to then-“Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that women allowed him to grope them because he is a “star.”
Habba told the judge that his side would call two witnesses: Trump and Carol Martin, the woman Carroll confided in shortly after Trump allegedly attacked her.
If the 45th president takes the witness stand, he will have strict control over what he is allowed to say and will not be allowed to claim that he did not know Carroll or that he did not sexually assault her, since a jury already found him responsible in the previous case, the judge said.
Carroll plans to take the stand, as he did in the first trial, on Wednesday. His team will also call a journalism professor and former editor at Elle magazine, where Carroll used to work.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn