Judge rejects Trump's bid to keep evidence out of rape case

NEW YORK - Former President Donald Trump's effort to keep key evidence out of his civil rape trial next month was rejected by a federal judge Monday.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan ruled that key witnesses will be allowed to testify and misogynistic remarks Trump made about women in 2005, when he didn't realize he was being recorded, and can be played for a jury that will hear quarter-century old rape allegations made by a former magazine columnist.

A trial in the case, filed by E. Jean Carroll, is scheduled for April 25. Carroll and Trump are expected to testify.

In a 2019 memoir, Carroll said that she was raped by Trump in the mid- 1990s in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, an upscale Manhattan department store. She said that a chance encounter filled with lighthearted banter turned violent when they entered a small room while teasing one another about who would try on a piece of lingerie.

Trump has repeatedly insisted that he never met Carroll at the store and that he didn't know who she was. During an October deposition, he misidentified a decades-old photograph of her as one of his ex-wives.

In the deposition, Trump was dismissive of Carroll's claims, saying: Physically she is not my type. Kaplan had previously ruled that taped remarks Trump made in an Access Hollywood tape could be used in a defamation case Carroll brought against him before she filed a rape suit against him in November, when a temporary law took effect that allowed adult rape victims to sue their abusers even if attacks happened decades ago.

He also ruled that two women who made sexual abuse claims in circumstances similar to those alleged by Carroll could testify at trial.

The Access Hollywood tape was revealed a few weeks before Trump won the November 2016 presidential election.

In the tape, he said that sometimes when he sees beautiful women, I just start kissing them. He added that, when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, including grabbing women between their legs.

He issued a rare apology, saying the comments were locker room banter caught on a hot mic.

Lawyers for Trump and Carroll had agreed that the defamation claim could be tried along with the rape claim, but the judge rejected that proposal Monday, saying that the defamation lawsuit could be tried separately or not at all if the Justice Department replaces Trump as a defendant with the United States.

In an order Monday, Kaplan ruled that he would allow Access Hollywood tape and testimony by two other women who say Trump attacked them sexually to be included in next month s trial, repeating his rulings from the defamation case.

There is no reason, and Mr. Trump has made no persuasive argument, for me to rule differently, he wrote.

He said he will allow testimony from two individuals who worked at the department store at the time of the alleged rape to testify, even though Trump's lawyers objected, saying they hadn't been notified in a timely fashion of the testimony and hadn't had a chance to depose the witnesses.

The judge said lawyers for Carroll had notified them of the witnesses in a timely manner.

Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, declined to say anything. A lawyer for Trump didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.