Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan ruled that key witnesses will be allowed to testify and misogynistic remarks Trump made about women in 2005 when he apparently didn’t realize he was being recorded can be played for a jury that will hear quarter-century-old rape allegations made by a former magazine columnist.
A trial in the case filed by E. Jean Carroll is scheduled to start April 25. Carroll and Trump are expected to testify.
Carroll said in a 2019 memoir that she was raped by Trump in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, an upscale Manhattan department store. She said a chance encounter filled with lighthearted banter turned violent when they entered a small room while teasing one another about who would try on a piece of lingerie.