Then-President Donald Trump “let his followers loose” on E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of sexual assault — including some who said she should be raped and killed, her lawyer said Tuesday.
“How much money will it take to make him stop? Because he didn’t stop,” Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, told a Manhattan federal jury in opening statements at Trump’s second defamation trial involving plaintiffs.
But Trump’s lawyer, in his own opening, claimed Carroll was enjoying his new status as an “anti-Trump celebrity” and should not be entitled to any damages stemming from his alleged lies about him.
The former president, 77, was ordered at an earlier hearing to pay $5 million to the “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist after a jury found him responsible for sexually assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room in 1996 and then defaming her by writing online in 2022 that his claims are “the work of a complete con.”
The latest defamation case involves similar comments Trump made against Carroll after she went public about the alleged assault in 2019.
A judge has ruled that Trump defamed Carroll in 2019. A jury is now deciding how much he should pay for it. His camp is seeking more than $10 million.
“He’s the president,” Crowley said of comments Trump made that allegedly appealed to his loyalists against Carroll. “And when he speaks, the world listens.
“He had the biggest microphone on the planet. And the next week, he used it to rip off his reputation, to slander him,” the lawyer claimed.
Crowley said the real estate tycoon — who is running for president again — did this in a series of “vicious attacks” against Carroll beginning June 22, 2019, when he denied ever meeting the now 80-year-old and verbally assaulted him.
Donald Trump “unleashed his followers” on E. Jean Carroll for alleging she sexually assaulted him, and some loyalists say she should die, her lawyer said during Tuesday’s opening. Gregory P. Mango
“He said he didn’t know who he was,” Crowley said. “He accused her of lying and making up stories to get money … and threatened her. He said he should pay dearly for speaking out against him.”
Trump “unleashed his followers to go after him online, to attack his character, to threaten his life,” the lawyer said.
After Trump’s public statements in speeches and online, Carroll received messages calling her “ugly,” saying she should be jailed and raped, and others “threatened that she should die because she had the audacity to speak out about what Donald Trump has done to him,” Crowley said.
This damaged Carroll’s journalistic reputation and caused him to live in fear — to this day, the lawyer said.
Trump, while president, denied knowing Carroll and attacked his credibility, Carroll’s lawyers said. Reuters
“He was afraid – afraid that one day someone would make good on their threat,” Crowley.
The lawyer said his client asked the jury to award him a “very significant” sum of money because of the toll on Carroll’s life over the past four years.
But Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba later argued that Carroll suffered no “harm” and that he was actually successful after going public with his allegations.
“He doesn’t want to improve his reputation, ladies and gentlemen. He loves his new brand,” Habba said of Carroll.
Habba said the alleged damages Carroll suffered consisted of “mean tweets from a Twitter troll … and he wants my client to pay for their actions.
“Regardless of some cruel tweets, Ms. Carroll is now more famous than she’s ever been in her life,” Habba said
However, Trump was “just defending himself” when he made public comments about it,” the lawyer said.
Trump was not in court when Crowley delivered his impassioned remarks to the nine jurors — including a doctor, a publicist and a banker — although the former commander-in-chief was in a lower Manhattan courtroom during jury selection earlier in the day.
“He sat in this court this morning. And as he sat there, he posted more defamatory statements, more lies … 22 posts today,” Crowley said. “Think about that, think about that when you consider how much money it would take to make it stop.”
Trump was in court in the morning but was not there during opening statements. AP
Just before and while Trump sat in the courtroom in the morning, he posted a series of messages on Truth Social about Carroll — including one that said: “Can you believe I have to defend myself against this woman’s false story?!”
The trial is expected to last a week, and jurors are expected to hear the infamous tape of Trump once bragging to “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that women let him grope them because he was a “star.”
Habba has told the judge that their camp will call two witnesses: Trump and Carol Martin — the woman Carroll told shortly after she was allegedly assaulted by Trump.
If the 45th president does testify, he will be short-handed about what he is allowed to say and will not be allowed to claim he didn’t know Carroll or that he didn’t sexually assault her, since a jury already found him guilty in a previous case. said the judge.
Carroll plans to take the stand — as he did in the first trial — on Wednesday. Her team is also set to call on a journalism professor and former editor at Elle magazine, where Carroll once worked.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
