Trump begins his defense at E. Jean Carroll defamation trial

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he takes the stage during his New Hampshire presidential primary election night watch party, in Nashua, New Hampshire, U.S., January 23, 2024. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo

By Jonathan Stempel and Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Donald Trump is expected to take the witness stand on Thursday after the writer E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers finished presenting evidence to convince a Manhattan jury that Trump owes her damages for having defamed and sexually abused her.

Carroll, 80, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, is seeking at least $10 million from Trump over his 2019 denials that he raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.

Trump, 77, has consistently denied wrongdoing, claiming he had not known Carroll despite photos showing them together, and accusing her of making up the rape to boost sales of her memoir.

Another witness is testifying for the defense before Trump’s expected testimony.

Last May, another jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million after he denied her rape claim in October 2022.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has presided at both trials, has ruled that the first trial established that Trump defamed and sexually abused Carroll.

The only issues for the nine jurors in the current trial is how much money Trump should pay Carroll, if any, for damaging her reputation – and how much, if any, he should pay as punishment and to dissuade him from defaming her again.

A damages expert testified on Carroll’s behalf last week that the reputational damage could be as high as $12.1 million.

Carroll’s final witness, former Elle Editor-in-Chief Robbie Myers, testified that she had viewed Carroll as a “truth-teller” whose empathy and sense of humor made her “so important” to the Elle brand.

Myers left Elle in 2017, and said under cross-examination by Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba that she did not know how Carroll’s reputation might have subsequently evolved.

Carroll’s lawyers also showed jurors excerpts from an October 2022 deposition, during which Trump stood by his denials of Carroll’s claims and branded her “mentally sick.”

Before Trump’s legal team began presenting his case, Kaplan denied Habba’s request that Trump be declared the victor because Carroll had not proven her case.

‘ANOTHER HOAX’

The trial has become an element of Trump’s third White House run, with the Republican frontrunner shuttling between the courtroom and campaign stops, while criticizing Carroll, the judge and the judicial process online and at press conferences.

He filed dozens of posts related to the case overnight to his Truth Social platform, maintaining that he had never heard of or touched Carroll and that her case was “Another HOAX.”

Trump’s legal team has said damages should be nominal or zero, and that Carroll has gained more than whatever she might have lost by pursuing and gaining her newfound fame.

Kaplan last week warned Trump not to use the courtroom to air political grievances, after one of Carroll’s lawyers complained that jurors might have overheard Trump calling the case a “witch hunt” and “con job.”

The judge has spent 29 years on the federal bench. He is known for his no-nonsense approach, and for expressing impatience with lawyers and witnesses who don’t follow his instructions.

Kaplan could interrupt or shut down Trump’s testimony, or throw him out of the courtroom, if Trump persisted in speaking out of turn, or digressed from the issues the jury will consider.

On Jan. 11, when another judge asked Trump if he could stick to the facts if allowed to give a closing statement in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud case against him, Trump responded by attacking the judge and proclaiming the case a politically inspired sham.

Carroll’s lawyers have warned that Trump might try to “sow chaos” if he testified, because his defiance might aid him politically.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel and Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Jonathan Oatis)