Former President Donald Trump will not be testifying in a civil lawsuit in New York City accusing him of defamation and battery filed by author and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.
Attorney Joe Tacopina told U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday that Trump would not be testifying at the trial, NBC News reported.
Carroll, 79, sued Trump, 76, in November, claiming he defamed her in a Truth Social post that October in which he called her allegations of him raping her at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s a "complete con job" and a "hoax and a lie." She added a charge of battery to the lawsuit under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.
Trump has denied all allegations that he raped Carroll or defamed her.
ABC News reported as Kaplan was asking attorneys Tuesday to forecast the remainder of the case, Tacopina said he has just one expert witness.
"So, Mr. Trump is not going to be coming?" said Kaplan, who was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1994.
"Correct," Tacopina said.
"It's his call," Kaplan said. "I understand that. You understand that. He understands that."
Tacopina said at the start of the trial that Trump would make the decision about testifying as the trial progressed, ABC News reported.
Trump is under no obligation to appear in court because this is a civil, not criminal, case. Trump sat for a videotaped deposition in October, NBC News reported, and Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan told the judge she plans to play some of that testimony for the jury later this week.
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