Trump’s DNA Proposal in Rape Accuser Suit Rejected by Judge
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(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump’s offer to provide a DNA sample to a New York writer who claims he raped her in the 1990s was rejected by a judge as too late and with too many strings attached.
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After balking at the request for years, the former president last week offered the DNA sample to his accuser, E. Jean Carroll. In exchange, he wanted her to turn over pages he says are missing from a forensic report on the dress she says she wore during the alleged attack.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in a ruling Wednesday that there “is no justification for any such deal,” with a trial set to start in April.
Trump “failed to demonstrate good cause to reopen discovery for the purpose of obtaining these pages of the DNA report,” Kaplan wrote. “Nor is there any legitimate basis for this court to accept Mr. Trump’s offer to provide his DNA sample made contingent on the court granting his application.”
Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina declined to comment on the ruling. Trump has long denied attacking Carroll and claims the lawsuit is part of a broader “witch hunt” against him.
Threats to Trump
The trial draws near as Trump, who is making his third run for president, faces legal threats on several other fronts. They include a Georgia criminal probe into his efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results, a New York investigation into hush money payments made before the 2016 vote, and a US Justice Department inquiry into his handling of classified documents.
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In his ruling Wednesday, Kaplan said the request for the missing pages — the appendix to the report — comes too late because Trump has been on notice for years that his copy of the report lacked an appendix.
“Despite this obvious omission, Mr. Trump never in three years asked a court to require its production,” the judge wrote. He added that Trump has frequently sought to delay the case.
Carroll’s Evidence
Carroll gave up on her request for Trump’s DNA earlier to move her claims to trial faster. Her lawyer Roberta Kaplan said she had already gathered enough evidence from other sources — including testimony from people Carroll had confided in about the alleged attack in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in Manhattan years ago, and other women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Kaplan declined to comment on the ruling.
The forensic report on the black Donna Karan dress that Carroll stored after the alleged attack shows DNA from an unidentified male, according to her court filings. The judge said that delaying the trial over the DNA probably wouldn’t be worth it because the result “could well prove entirely inconclusive.”
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Trump said last week he plans to testify in his own defense in a defamation suit Carroll filed against him in 2019 after he accused her of fabricating the attack to sell a book. The DNA offer related to the more recent sexual battery suit she filed against him.
Both Trump and Carroll have already been deposed under oath about the alleged attack.
The case is Carroll v. Trump, 22-cv-10016, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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(Updates with legal threats to Trump in second section and details of judge’s ruling in second and third sections.)
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