NEW YORK — A New York City judge on Friday said lawyers for E. Jean Carroll may call two women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct as witnesses at his upcoming civil rape trial, and play the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape for the jury.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan gave the green light to all of Carroll’s requests in a 23-page ruling.
Carroll, who is suing Trump for defamation and sexual battery claims, has accused him of raping her in Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in the mid-1990s. Trump denies the allegation.
Kaplan found the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged that his fame gave him license to grope women, was relevant to the case.
“(A) jury reasonably could find, even from the Access Hollywood tape alone, that Mr. Trump admitted in the Access Hollywood tape that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so,” Kaplan’s decision reads.
The jurist disagreed with arguments from Trump’s lawyers that uncharged sexual misconduct allegations by two other women — Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds — shouldn’t be included in trial testimony.
“Mr. Trump’s attempt to minimize the similarity between his alleged actions with respect to Ms. Leeds and Ms. Stoynoff, on the one hand, and Ms. Carroll on the other is not very persuasive. The alleged acts are far more similar than different in the important aspects. In each case, the alleged victim claims that Mr. Trump suddenly attacked her sexually,” Kaplan wrote.
“In the cases of Ms. Carroll and Ms. Stoynoff, he allegedly did so in a location after closing a door behind him, which gave him privacy. In all three cases, he allegedly did so without consent. So it is only Ms. Leeds’ case that differs in an important particular — the fact that the alleged assault occurred on an airplane in circumstances in which, despite the fact that both she and Mr. Trump were in bulkhead seats, afforded little privacy.”
Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina declined to comment on the decision, as did Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan.
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