Retired stock broker, 81, testifies how Donald Trump groped her on a plane trends now
A retired stockbroker told a court today how Donald Trump groped her and tried to kiss her on a plane in full view of another passenger.
Jessica Leeds, 81, said that it felt like the former president had a 'zillion hands' when he put his hands on her breasts in the first class seat in 1979.
Another passenger had 'eyes like saucers' as he watched Trump put his hand up her skirt before she fought him off and walked away to another seat.
The testimony came in the second week of magazine writer E. Jean Carroll's civil lawsuit against Trump, who she accuses of rape in a department store dressing room in 1996.
Jessica Leeds, 81, told the court Tuesday how Donald Trump groped her while sitting next to her in a first class seat on an airplane in 1979
She said it felt like the former president had a 'zillion hands' when he put his hands on her breasts and up her skirt
Leeds said she was working as a traveling sales rep for a newsprint company in 1979 when she took the flight from either Houston or Atlanta to New York.
Trump was sitting in the window seat next to her and introduced himself and they shook hands. Leeds had no idea who he was as she lived outside New York at the time.
They ate their meal and chatted for a bit and then 'suddenly Trump decided to kiss me and grope me,' Leeds told the jury.
Nothing in their conversation suggested she wanted anything sexual, the court heard.
Leeds said, 'It was like a tussle. His hands - he was trying to kiss me and trying to pull me towards him.
'He grabbed my breast. It was like he had 40 zillion hands. It was a tussling match between the two of us.
'When he started putting his hand up my skirt it gave me a jolt of strength and I managed to wiggle out of the seat.'
She went back to her seat in coach before she had been unexpectedly upgraded to first class.
Leeds told the jury she didn't scream but she said that the 'people behind us must have thought something was going on because the chair was wiggling.'
She said, 'The guy sitting across the aisle from me, his eyes were like saucers. I remember thinking where at the stewardesses? Why doesn't somebody come?
'Then I realized nobody was going to help me and I was going to have to do it myself.'
Leeds said that while the attack lasted for just a few seconds it 'seemed like forever' and came 'out of the blue.'
After the flight landed she stayed on board until everyone had left because she didn't want to risk running into Trump in the terminal.
She kept quiet about it for decades as at the time 'men could get away with a lot' at work and Leeds felt this was along those lines.
But when Trump ran for the presidency she wrote a letter to the New York Times, which ran a story about her.
She said that Trump 'wasn't the kind (of) person I wanted as president.'
Leeds said she was 'furious' after watching a presidential debate where Trump denied harassing women
She told the jury, 'He was lying.'
Asked how she knew, she said, 'The experience I had with him.'
According to Leeds, Trump addressed her claims at a rally where he said something along the lines of 'he would never make a pass at her' because she was so old.
Earlier in the day Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll kept repeating 'he pulled down my tights' during the call to Lisa Birnbach in the mid 1990s
Carroll, 79, claims that Trump 76, pounced on her in the changing room of Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan around 1996
Lisa Birnbach said that Carroll made her swear she would 'never speak of this again' and she stayed quiet until 2019 when Carroll went public and Trump was president
Earlier in the day Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll kept repeating 'he pulled down my tights'
