Jury is out in Donald Trump rape case trends now
The jury in Donald Trump's rape trial went out just before lunchtime Tuesday.
The panel of six men and three women retired to consider the charges in the civil case in New York. Trump denies the allegation that he raped advice columnist E. Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid 1990s.
But there was a last minute hiccup over a social media post by the former President in which he claimed he wasn't allowed to 'defend himself'.
Trump was allowed to testify but his lawyers did not file an application by the deadline which was set by the judge at 5pm on Sunday.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote: 'Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself.'
He added he would 'appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome!'
In court Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan said it was 'troublesome' for Trump to be posting that he wasn't allowed to testify when in fact he was.
She asked Judge Kaplan to tell the jury that Trump did have the opportunity to come to court but he balked.
Judge Kaplan said: 'We're dealing here with what we're dealing with' and said he wanted to make no further comment.
Trump's lawyer Joe Tacopina told the court that there was 'nothing that would require an instruction' to the jury in the post.
The jury of six men and three woman are deliberating in Donald Trump's rape trial. Carroll, 79, claims that Trump raped her in the changing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store and sued him for battery and defamation
On Truth Social, Trump wrote Tuesday: 'Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself'
Donald Trump in 1987 with his first wife, Ivana, rape accuser E. Jean Carroll and Carroll's then-husband
Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct or assault by more than two dozen women, but this has so far been the only case to end up before a jury.
Carroll, 79, sued for battery under the Adult Survivors Act, a law passed in New York that allowed a one year window for sexual assault claims normally outside of the statute of limitations.
Her claim for defamation was based on statements made by Trump, 76, when he was President and posts to Truth Social, his own social network in which he called her a liar.
Over two weeks the jury of six men and three women heard emotional testimony from three accusers and two of Carroll's friends, among other witnesses.
Carroll was represented by high profile attorney Roberta Kaplan, one of the founders of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, which helped represent victims of workplace harassment and came about after the MeToo movement.
She told the jury that she was on her way out of Bergdorf Goodman when she saw Trump coming in. 'Hey you're that advice columnist', he told her. She fired back: 'Hey you're that real estate guy'.
At the time Carroll was a media celebrity in her own right thanks to her advice column with Elle magazine, Ask E. Jean, and her cable TV show of the same name.
Trump asked her to help him choose a gift for a girl and after some 'playful banter' they went up to the sixth floor to the lingerie department.
As Carroll told it, she thought the whole thing was a 'fun New York story', made all the more amusing when Trump told her to try on a see-through bodysuit. She told him to try it on, continuing the banter as he showed her into a changing room.
But then the mood suddenly became 'dark', Carroll told the jury.
Trump 'shut the door and shoved me against the wall,' Carroll said. She told the court: 'I pushed him back, and he thrust me back against the wall, banging my head.
'He put his shoulder against me and held me against the wall'.
Over two weeks the jury of six men and three women heard emotional testimony from three accusers and two of Carroll's friends, among other witnesses
Bergdorf Goodman (above) is only a block away from Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue
Former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll watches as a former U.S. president Donald Trump's video deposition is played in court during a civil rape trial in New York on May 4
Carroll could not see Trump as he penetrated her but she could 'certainly feel that pain'.
After fighting him off, she ran outside and called a friend, Lisa Birnbach, a journalist, who told her to go to the police.
Carroll also spoke to Carol Martin, the former TV anchor, who told her to keep quiet as Trump would 'bury her'.
She did exactly that for 20 years until 2019 when he had become President and she wrote a memoir publicly accusing him for the first time.
Carroll claims that Trump set out to 'destroy' her, calling her a liar and saying her allegations were a 'hoax'.
She endured a deluge of hate mail and Tweets and allegedly lost her job with Elle because her readers couldn't trust her any more.
Under cross examination from Trump's lawyer Joe Tacopina, Carroll became emotional when asked repeatedly why she didn't scream.
'Mr Tacopina,' Carroll said, 'I was born in 1943. I am a member of the silent generation. Women like me were taught and trained to keep our chins up and to not complain.
'The fact that I never went to the police is not surprising for someone my age. We were not ever trained to call the police, ever. I would rather have done anything than call the police'.
When Tacopina repeatedly asked why Carroll didn't scream, she fired back: 'You can't beat up on me for not screaming'.
Carroll cried and uttered one of the most memorable lines of the trial: 'I'm telling you, he raped me, whether I screamed or not!'
Judge Lewis Kaplan allowed other accusers to give evidence in what Carroll hoped proved a pattern of behavior.
The first Jessica Leeds, who claimed Trump groped her on a plane from Texas to New York in 1979.
They ate their meal and chatted for a bit and then 'suddenly Trump decided to kiss me and grope me', Leeds told the jury.
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
