Donald Trump’s lawyers have said they will not call any witnesses in a civil trial over a writer’s rape allegation.
The claim is being brought by former advice columnist E Jean Carroll, who alleges that the former president raped her in the mid-1990s.
Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina said they decided not to put on a defence case after learning that health issues were preventing their expert witness, a psychiatrist, from giving evidence.
Mr Tacopina had previously said Mr Trump would not give evidence at the trial in federal court in Manhattan.
On Wednesday, jurors heard portions of the videotaped deposition he sat for in the case in October.
In one clip, Mr Trump called Carroll’s allegations “ridiculous” and alleged it was “just made up."
Ms Carroll’s lawyers said they could finish presenting their case on Thursday.
They listed five remaining witnesses, including a former People magazine writer who claims Trump pinned her against a wall and forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida in 2005. He denies the allegation.
They also plan to play excerpts of a sworn deposition Mr Trump gave in connection with Ms Carroll’s lawsuit, as well as the 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals.
Trump denies touching women against their will and has said Ms Carroll’s claims are politically motivated attempts to smear his reputation and deny him the White House.
The case is not being heard on Fridays, meaning jurors could hear closing arguments and start deliberating next week.
“I think you can reasonably expect to get the case early next week," presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan told jurors.
Ms Carroll first detailed the alleged rape in her 2019 memoir in which she said a chance encounter with Trump in spring 1996 led to him attacking her in a dressing room of a department store.
