This is damning new testimony for Donald Trump. On Tuesday, May 2, another woman recounted being sexually assaulted by the former president on a plane in the late 1970s. After coming out of silence in 2016 in The New York Times, Jessica Leeds, 81, told Manhattan Federal Civil Court how, "in 1978-79," on a plane to New York, she dragged herself out of her first-class seat because the businessman tried to kiss her on the neck , then put his hands on his body.
"There was no discussion, it came out of nowhere [...] He tried to kiss me, grab my breasts," she said at the civil trial that started this week. last for alleged rape and defamation, brought by author E. Jean Carroll, who is seeking compensation from Donald Trump.
Before the nine jurors, Jessica Leeds explained under oath that she found the strength at the time to get up and leave when Donald Trump "put his hands under my blouse". "It seemed like an eternity to me", whereas it took place in a few "seconds", added this woman invited to testify by the lawyers of E. Jean Carroll, who accuses the former president of the United States of raping her in a dressing room of a New York department store in 1996.
The jurors were able to watch this television sequence, during which the Republican candidate had to defend himself after the broadcast of insulting remarks against women. "I was pissed that he was lying," Jessica Leeds said.
A little earlier this Tuesday morning, a friend of E. Jean Carroll, columnist Lisa Birnbach, corroborated the complainant's account. She confirmed that she called her shortly after the alleged incident, in 1996, to tell her that Donald Trump had "assaulted" her. "I want the world to know she was telling the truth," she said.
Donald Trump is not criminally charged with rape in this case. E. Jean Carroll filed the suit based on a New York state law last November providing that option for one year for criminally statute-barred sexual assault cases.
