Former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll took the stand Wednesday morning in her battery and defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen,” Carroll testified. “He lied and shattered my reputation and I’m here to try to get my life back.”
Carroll is suing Trump for battery and defamation, alleging that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the spring of 1996 and then defamed her years later when she went public with the allegations. Trump has repeatedly denied her allegations.
Testimony from former store manager
Before Carroll took the stand, former Bergdorf Goodman Women’s Store Manager Cheryl Beall testified for under an hour as Carroll’s first witness in the civil trial.
Beall worked at the luxury department store for a decade until about 1998, and had an office on the sixth floor adjacent to the lingerie department where Carroll has alleged Trump raped her.
She walked the jury through a floor plan of the sixth floor from the relevant time period, describing the layout and fitting rooms on that floor as a wooden-walled room with walls that met the ceiling. The fitting room door locked automatically when closed, she testified.
Beall said the store had a practice of keeping fitting room doors closed while not in use, but they’d “regularly” be left open.
Bergdorf Goodman scheduled at least one person to monitor each department at all times but it was not uncommon that the area on the sixth floor would be left unmanned, especially on a slow evening, Beall said.
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Source: www.cnn.com