Mr. Trump, 76, is scheduled to appear on April 10, 2023, in a New York court in a defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, 79, who accuses him of raping her in a dressing room at a a New York department store in 1995 or 1996.
A double civil case for alleged defamation and rape has pitted Ms. Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, against Donald Trump, 76, billionaire businessman and Republican president in 2017, before federal justice in Manhattan since 2019, then 2022. to 2021.
The two produced their sworn depositions last October.
During his October 19 testimony via video link — made public this week — Donald Trump reaffirmed his line of defence: “I will say this with the utmost respect: first, she is not my type; then it never happened”.
But when shown a photo of himself with Ms Carroll at a 1990s reception, he replied: ‘That’s Marla, that’s my wife’ before his own lawyer Alina Habba corrected him.
Donald Trump was married from 1993 to 1999 to actress Marla Maples, 59, and met his current wife Melania in 1998.
In the defamation suit, E. Jean Carroll sued Trump in November 2019. She accuses him of defaming her for calling her rape allegations a “complete lie” in June of that year.
The tenant of the White House at the time always replied that Ms. Carroll was “not his kind of woman” and his lawyers claimed that he was protected, in 2019, by his immunity as head of state.
As for the rape charges, Ms. Carroll had not been able to file a complaint in 2019 since the alleged facts were prescribed.
However, on November 24, 2022, a New York State law (“Adult Survivors Act”) came into force allowing, for one year, victims of sexual assault to relaunch their civil legal action.
Ms. Carroll therefore filed a new complaint in November in New York for “defamation” but also “assault” and “assault” and requested a civil trial for damages, which is to be held on April 10.