“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me.” This was stated by the American writer Jean Carroll, testifying at the civil trial underway in New York. “When I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and destroyed my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back, ”Carroll pressed before the judges. The longtime columnist for the magazine Elle he denounced Trump last November for facts dating back over 20 years ago. He did it on the basis ofAdult Survivors Act, or a state law – which went into effect on November 24 last year – that allows rape victims to sue years after the violence they suffered. At the end of 2022, Jean Carroll’s lawyer had asked for compensation from his client for “pain and suffering, psychological trauma, loss of dignity and damage to reputation”. At the heart of the trial, which began yesterday – Tuesday 25 April – is an episode that occurred between 1995 and 1996, when Carroll allegedly met the tycoon in the Bergdorf and Goodman department store on New York’s Fifth Avenue. According to the writer’s story, Trump would have asked her for help finding a gift for a woman, inviting her to try on lingerie in a dressing room. Then the situation escalated: «He closed the dressing room door and pushed me against the wall, hitting me on the head very hard. He put his mouth on my lips, and a moment later, still dressed in his work clothes, shirt, jacket, tie and coat, he unzipped his trousers », Jean Carroll had recounted about three years ago. Trump denied that any of this ever happened and accused Carroll of having made it all up “to gain visibility and to sell her book”. For this reason, Carroll has added another one for defamation to the complaint for the alleged violence, which at the moment, however, is stalled.
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