Trump rape case: Lawyer slams ex-president’s proposal to finally expose DNA as ‘bad faith’ delay tactic

  • New court documents say Trump is now ready to provide a DNA sample for his civil rape case in New York.
  • The deadline for new evidence has passed, so it’s unclear if the sample will be used in court.
  • Carroll’s lawyer called the proposal “another unscrupulous and legally frivolous delaying tactic.”

Former President Donald Trump has agreed to undergo DNA testing as part of his defense in an upcoming civil rape trial in New York federal court, but lawyers for his accuser say the offer comes too late and is just another delaying tactic.

Trump’s sudden willingness to provide a DNA sample after the opening of the case ended – and after three years of denying the request – was confirmed in court documents on Friday. This was first reported by the Daily Beast.

“Mr. Trump is indeed willing to provide a DNA sample for the sole purpose of comparing it to the DNA found on the dress in question,” Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopin, said in a statement.

But the former president is also demanding that his accuser first submit a genome to which he will be compared.

“Mr Trump’s DNA is either on the dress or it isn’t,” and his accuser should be prepared to come forward with his own evidence, the document says.

“Why is the Plaintiff now hiding from this reality?” the pitch asks. “We’re guessing the answer to that question is that she knows his DNA isn’t on the dress because the alleged sexual assault never happened.”

Lawyers for Trump’s accuser, E. Jean Carroll, vehemently opposed a last-minute DNA swab offer in their response to Tacopina’s letter on Friday.

Carroll’s lawyers first requested Trump’s DNA in January 2020 for comparison with skin particles found on a dress she said she was wearing at the time of the alleged attack. But Trump resisted for years. Her lawyers now say he shouldn’t be allowed to suddenly change his mind before trial.

“Trump may choose to postpone the trial until another day, and he (and his new lawyers) may regret the decisions he made earlier in this case, but this is not a reason to postpone Carroll’s day in court again,” one of Carroll’s lawyers said. , Roberta Kaplan, wrote Friday.

She also called the last-minute proposal “a blatant attempt to influence the jury” and “another unscrupulous and legally unsound delaying tactic.”

It’s unclear if the judge will allow the final DNA sample. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan (no relation to Carroll’s attorney) has complained several times that Trump’s side is dragging its case with delay after delay.

Lawyer Kaplan explained in her response Friday that she and Carroll’s other lawyers ultimately decided not to fight Trump over his DNA because they were waiting for appeals that could slow the process.

“Carroll, now 79, has built her case with compelling additional evidence and is ready to prove Trump accountable to the jury; she should not be prejudiced by Trump’s latest gambit to defy court orders and cancel the court date,” her lawyer said. wrote.

Takopina declined to comment on Friday’s filing. Kaplan said the answer “speaks for itself”.

Photo from a lab report that Donald Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll filed in January 2020 as part of her defamation lawsuit against the former president. insider

Carroll claims Trump raped her in Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room in the mid-1990s.

She told two close friends about the alleged attack, but not the police.

“In this society, women who have been raped are looked upon as less, they are looked upon as damaged goods, they are looked upon as stupid,” she explained her silence, speaking of the assault in an affidavit in the case.

Carroll kept the dress she said she was wearing at the time. Nearly 30 years later, lab tests found skin cells from a yet unidentified man on his sleeves, she said in court documents.

Her legal team, led by Kaplan, demanded from Defendant “a buccal sample, blood or skin cells sufficient for DNA analysis and comparison with unidentified male DNA present on the dress that the plaintiff wore at the time of the sexual assault at issue in this lawsuit.” .

For three years, the former president refused to provide a sample for testing.

E. Jean Carroll accused Donald Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s. Eva Deutsch for The Washington Post via Getty Images

But Trump, who recently hired Tacopina as the new lead lawyer, appears to be changing his tack now.

Including Trump’s DNA in the case would be an 11-hour roll of the dice for both sides.

This is risky for Trump, who denies even knowing Carroll. And that’s risky for Carroll, who has publicly touted the importance of the dress and who, lacking Trump’s sample, might ask the jury, “What should Trump be hiding?”

“This sample could be the key to the case,” said defense attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former chief assistant to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

“He says it never happened,” Friedman said to Agnifilo. “So if it’s his DNA, the match will go a long way in her case.”

On the other hand, a “no match” result could hurt Carroll’s side.

“She came out and said, ‘I kept the dress, I have a sample,’ and so she kind of stuck with it,” Friedman Agnifilo said.

“The minute you bring science into it and say, ‘I have proof,’ if there is no proof, it’s hard to say, ‘You still have to believe me.’ It’s getting harder and harder to climb the mountain,” she added.

“I have the dress,” Carroll tweeted in 2021. “Trump is basically in deep shit.”

A photograph of E. Jean Carroll’s dress is included in the lab report. New York County Supreme Court

“If it’s not his DNA or it’s inconclusive due to degradation, then it could potentially clear him,” Friedman Agnifilo said.

“It could be Trump’s version of ‘If it doesn’t fit, you have to justify.'”

Carroll, a longtime Elle tips columnist, says she kept Donna Karan’s coat dress in her closet for decades — and never wore it again until she posed in it on the cover of New York magazine in June 2019, when she first appeared in front of the public. accusation of rape in an exit essay.

A few months later, Carroll sued Trump for defamation when he loudly and repeatedly denied her story. Trump said she was not his type and stated that he had never even met her, despite photographic evidence to the contrary.

Carroll sued Trump again last year for a new defamation lawsuit and for alleged rape after New York passed a law temporarily allowing sexual assault lawsuits to be filed in cases where the statute of limitations had expired.

Both lawsuits have trial dates in April and could be combined and heard at the same time.

The referee seemed to be intent on sticking to the schedule. During a scheduled hearing in the case Tuesday, Trump’s lawyer asked for a six-week extension for Carroll’s second lawsuit, but Kaplan only gave him one.

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