A federal judge will allow the so-called Access Hollywood tape to be played at the defamation trial against former President Donald Trump brought by E. Jean Carroll, a New Yorker who claims he raped her nearly three decades ago.
The 23-page opinion issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in the New York borough of Manhattan also rejected Trump's effort to block Carroll from bringing in two female witnesses who accused Trump of assaulting them in the years before his political aspirations.
TRUMP SEEKS TO BLOCK PAST ACCUSERS FROM TESTIFYING IN E. JEAN CARROLL DEFAMATION
Trump, 76, had argued against allowing Carroll to show the 2005 hot-mic recording of his highly criticized remarks to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, saying it wasn't relevant to the trial. Trump made crude remarks suggesting fame and notoriety allowed men to grope women.
Kaplan wrote Friday that Trump's alleged conduct with women was pivotal to Carroll's claim, even in her defamation suit.
“Most of the evidence that Mr. Trump seeks to keep from the trial jury is to the effect that Mr. Trump allegedly has abused or attempted to abuse women other than Ms. Carroll in ways that are comparable to what he allegedly did to Ms. Carroll," Kaplan wrote in his decision.
Trump has vehemently denied raping Carroll, who claims he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store after an alleged encounter with her there in 1995 or 1996.
Carroll, 79, alleges in one of her suits that the former president defamed her in 2019 after she disclosed her claim by saying she lied and saying that the allegation was motivated by politics and money.
“In other words,” Kaplan said, “Ms. Carroll offers the evidence to show that Mr. Trump has a propensity for such behavior.”
Trump has also denied defaming Carroll, saying that his denial was a fair response to her claims.
But because of the tape and other evidence introduced in the defamation case, Kaplan said Carroll satisfied the rule that permits evidence of other sexual assaults to be presented in civil cases about an alleged sexual assault.
Two other women who provided depositions against Trump include Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff. Jurors will hear their testimony when the trial is expected to begin late next month.
In Leeds's deposition, she said that the former president attempted to kiss her, place his hand up her skirt, and grab her breasts in 1979 after an airplane stewardess invited her to sit adjacent to him.
Stoynoff said in her deposition that she was authoring an article for People in 2005 about his wedding anniversary with Melania Trump. She alleges Donald Trump then grabbed her, pushed her, and began kissing her at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
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Trump's attorney, Joseph Tacopina, declined to comment to the Washington Examiner.
The case is Carroll v. Trump in the Southern District of New York.