The New York columnist’s remarks came as she testified on the first day of her civil assault and defamation trial against the former president, which continues Wednesday, April 26 in Manhattan.
Carroll, 79, who lives in Orange County’s Hudson Valley, made headlines in June 2019 when she claimed in a New York magazine cover story that Trump had been killed by Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s. The dressing room raped her.
Trump has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying he never met Carroll, that she was “completely lying” to sell her memoir and that she was “not my type.”
The comments, made during Trump’s presidency in 2019, prompted Carroll to sue him for defamation.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote about it he said it didn’t happen,” The Washington Post quoted Carroll on the witness stand Wednesday as saying“He lied and ruined my reputation and I’m here to get my life back.”
Carroll went on to describe to jurors how she was “delighted” to meet Trump at Bergdorf Goodman, claiming she followed him to the lingerie section to help him pick out a gift for another woman.
She then testified that she accompanied Trump into the dressing room, where she claimed he forcibly inserted his finger inside her.
“It was a horrible feeling as he stuck his hand inside me and flexed his fingers,” Carroll said in her testimony, quoted by The Washington Post.
She testified that Trump then raped her in the dressing room before she pushed him back on her knee.
Carroll said she did not report the alleged incident to police because she blamed herself.
“I kept wondering why I walked in there and put myself in that situation,” she was quoted as saying by The Washington Post. “I’m proud to say I did go out. I lifted my knee and pushed him back.”
She went on to say that she “can no longer live a romantic life” and has not had sex since the alleged encounter.
Carroll is suing Trump for unspecified damages under the New York Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily gives victims of sexual abuse a year to file a civil claim even if it happened decades ago.
She also wants the judge to order Trump to retract his statement.
The former president is not expected to attend the trial.
in a Post on Truth Socialhe denounced the trial as a “sham” and a “witch hunt,” and called Carroll’s lawyer a “political agent.”
In court on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan warned Trump’s lawyers about his statement, saying his statement and future similar statements could lead to “new potential sources of liability,” CNN reports.
In March 2023, Kaplan ruled that jurors in the case would remain anonymous, citing Trump’s “past words and actions,” saying the former president had “repeatedly attacked courts, judges, various law enforcement officials and other public officials, and even Other matters for individual jurors.”
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