Former President Donald Trump suffered a new setback this Friday in a New York federal court when Judge Lewis Kaplan, who will preside over the defamation trial against him, admitted as evidence a tape in which he makes lewd statements about women, which was released to light during the presidential campaign in 2016.
Trump tried to prevent excerpts from the tape "Access Hollywood" will be heard during the trial for the lawsuit filed in 2019 against him by the writer E. Jean Carroll.
Kaplan noted in his 23-page decision that "It is not for the court to decide on the admissibility of this evidence to decide what Mr. Trump meant or how to interpret his statements” in the tape, in which he discusses his failed attempt to have a sexual encounter with a married woman.
On the tape, which Trump called "locker room conversation"also notes that he is attracted to beautiful women, saying: "I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet"and ensures: "When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do everything".
Judge Kaplan also denied Trump his attempt to prevent the testimony of Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, which Carroll will present during the trial scheduled to begin next month, who claim that the former president (2017-2021) sexually assaulted them, which this denied.
Kaplan cited in his decision rules passed by Congress in 1994, which say that in a civil case “based on the sexual assault of one of the parties,” proof that the defendant committed any other sexual assault can be admitted at trial. .
"Trump has claimed that Leeds is a liar and that no such event ever occurred, and he will have the right to present that argument to the jury. But that’s not the problem now"also pointed out the federal magistrate.
Carroll, 79, maintains a legal battle for defamation against Trump, 76, after he denied having raped her, which the writer denounces occurred in the changing room of a department store in Manhattan, and that the former president had pronounced what you consider "false accusations" about her after publishing her story in a book and in a magazine article in 2019.
Added to this lawsuit is another for the alleged rape, which Carroll filed last November when the new New York Adult Survivors Law came into force, which opens a one-year period in the state to seek justice for sexual crimes that have been prescribed until now. .
The judge has yet to decide whether to consolidate the two lawsuits that Carroll filed against Trump.