Carroll testifies: ‘Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen’

Former journal columnist E. Jean Carroll took the stand Wednesday morning in her battery and defamation lawsuit in opposition to former President Donald Trump.

“I’m right here as a result of Donald Trump raped me, and after I wrote about it, he stated it didn’t occur,” Carroll testified. “He lied and shattered my popularity and I’m right here to attempt to get my life again.”

Carroll is suing Trump for battery and defamation, alleging that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room within the spring of 1996 after which defamed her years later when she went public with the allegations. Trump has repeatedly denied her allegations.

Earlier than Carroll took the stand, former Bergdorf Goodman Girls’s Retailer Supervisor Cheryl Beall testified for below an hour as Carroll’s first witness within the civil trial.

Beall labored on the luxurious division retailer for a decade till about 1998, and had an workplace on the sixth flooring adjoining to the lingerie division the place Carroll has alleged Trump raped her.

She walked the jury by a flooring plan of the sixth flooring from the related time interval, describing the structure and becoming rooms on that flooring as a wooden-walled room with partitions that met the ceiling. The becoming room door locked routinely when closed, she testified.

Beall stated the shop had a apply of holding becoming room doorways closed whereas not in use, however they’d “repeatedly” be left open.

Bergdorf Goodman scheduled a minimum of one individual to observe every division always nevertheless it was not unusual that the realm on the sixth flooring could be left unmanned, particularly on a sluggish night, Beall stated.

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