Donald Trump strutted out of a New York federal courtroom on Friday, shortly after an attorney for E. Jean Carroll began closing arguments in his sexual libel trial in which she urged jurors to award damages “so great that he… finally stop it.” Defamation of the writer.
Trump’s dramatic exit came just minutes after the judge in the case warned his lawyer that she risked being thrown in prison before closing arguments began in the trial that will determine how much former President E. Jean Carroll is sentenced owes financial damages for defaming her in 2019 when she accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s.
“The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just stood up and left the courtroom,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said.
Trump returned about an hour later, after Carroll’s attorney finished her summary and just before his attorney began her closing argument.
The former president posted several social media messages attacking Kaplan over his rulings in the case, accusing the judge of having “absolute hatred for Donald J. Trump (ME!).”
In her closing argument, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, urged the jury to award Trump damages because he refused to stop defaming Carroll even after a jury found him liable last year had ordered him to pay $5 million.
Trump’s comments sparked death threats and malicious emails and tweets against Carroll, the lawyer said.
“The dollar amount has to be very large,” Roberta Kaplan said. “It is at least as much and probably much more than the $12 million,” the lawyer noted. An expert had testified that it might cost to restore Carroll’s reputation after Trump accused her of investing her claim.
“At the last trial, Donald J. Trump didn’t even bother to show up, but at this trial, which is about damages, he was sure that he was here and the only thing he cared about was his money.” said Kaplan. “He doesn’t care about the law or the truth, he cares about money, and your decision on punitive damages is the only hope for him to stop.”
“How much will it take for him to stop? It’s costing him a lot of money,” she said.
Trump “is worth billions of dollars, he said under oath he could pay a million dollars a day for 10 years and still have money in the bank,” Kaplan said. “As you begin to consider, I encourage you to step back and think about the bigger picture: a former president of the United States who sexually abused, defamed, and continues to defame.”
Earlier, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba, who had already angered Judge Kaplan over his late court appearance, angered him when she persistently argued that defense attorneys should show jurors a slide depicting some tweets related to Carroll during their summation.
“You’re not going to use a slide to show how many tweets there were, you’re not using that slide, period,” Judge Kaplan said.
When Habba said, “I have to make a record,” meaning that she wanted to put her arguments on the record, the judge gave his warning.
“You are about to spend time in prison, now sit down!” the judge told Habba.
Habba said in her closing argument that Carroll “has not demonstrated that she is even entitled to compensation.”
“The burden is not on Ms. Carroll to prove that his comments caused harm, it is not on President Trump, and she has not met that burden, that is common sense,” Habba said.
The lawyer also pointed out that Carroll confirmed her claims of receiving “thousands of threats.”
Carroll testified that she deleted most of the threats so they were no longer available as evidence.
“Either Ms. Carroll is lying to you and these messages did not exist at all, or she has deleted them and wants you to rely on her and guess what they are not here and she needs to give them to you in support of her claim for damages.” and that is a fact,” Habba said.
Habba also said that not only did Carroll “suffer no emotional harm” after she went public with her claim in 2019 that Trump raped her, “she was happier than ever.”
she told Vanity Fair [magazine] “The support she received on the streets was heartwarming,” Habba said. “One of the most carefree and happiest times of her life, where she was in a cocoon of love…does that sound like someone whose world has collapsed, who can’t sleep?”
“She enjoyed the new attention she received,” the lawyer said.
Before arguments began and the jury entered the courtroom, the judge issued a warning.
“During closing arguments, no one is allowed to say anything other than opposing counsel,” Kaplan said. “There can be no interruptions or audible comments from anyone else, and that includes when I indict the jury, and that also applies to the attorneys.”
Carroll’s lawyers complained during the trial that Trump made comments that were audible to jurors while he sat at the defense table with his lawyers.
The nine-member jury is expected to begin deliberations later Friday after several hours of summaries from Carroll’s attorney and Trump’s attorney, as well as instructions from the judge.
Last year, she won a $5 million judgment against him in a separate but related lawsuit. Trump is appealing this ruling.
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2024-01-26 16:50:10
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