Donald Trump testified in a recorded deposition that writer E. Jean Carroll’s rape allegation against him was made up, calling her account “the most ridiculous, disgusting story.”
A portion of the video of the deposition was played for jurors Wednesday during a civil trial on Ms. Carroll’s allegations that Mr. Trump raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan around 1996. The jury watched the video after hearing in person from a former People magazine reporter who said she was assaulted by Mr. Trump in 2005.
Ms. Carroll first went public about her own alleged assault in a New York Magazine article in 2019 and later in a book. Mr. Trump, who has previously denied the allegations, said in the 2022 deposition that he rarely if ever went to the famed department store. If he had raped Ms. Carroll, “it would have been reported within minutes,” he said. More of the deposition was expected to be played in court Thursday.
Wednesday’s proceedings included testimony from Natasha Stoynoff, the onetime reporter for People, who told jurors that Mr. Trump sexually assaulted her in December 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Mr. Trump previously has denied Ms. Stoynoff’s allegations.
