9 New Yorkers will determine whether or not Donald Trump is accountable for the alleged rape of a journalist in a Manhattan division retailer virtually 30 years in the past, when jury deliberations start on Tuesday in a civil case introduced in opposition to the previous US president.

E Jean Carroll, a former recommendation columnist and tv persona, filed the lawsuit final yr, after a New York regulation allowed claims beforehand barred by the statute of limitations to proceed for a restricted time interval.

The 79-year-old alleged Trump sexually assaulted her within the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman’s flagship Fifth Avenue retailer, and subsequently defamed her after she spoke publicly about it in 2019.

“Donald Trump has a modus operandi,” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, instructed jurors her closing argument on Monday. Through the two-week trial she and the remainder of Carroll’s authorized workforce tried to point out similarities between the accounts of ladies who’ve accused the previous president of rape, comparable to flirting in a semi-public place adopted by a “sudden lunge”.

“What occurred to E Jean Carroll suits this sample,” Kaplan added, referring repeatedly to the Entry Hollywood tape that first surfaced through the 2016 presidential marketing campaign, wherein Trump bragged about grabbing ladies’s genitals. The tape was performed for the jury on a number of events through the trial.

Trump didn’t attend the trial and declined to testify in his personal defence. A lawyer for the previous president, Joe Tacopina, stated Carroll’s declare was “an unbelievable work of fiction”.

“You’ll be able to assume that Donald Trump is a impolite and crude particular person, and that [Carroll’s] story is unnecessary,” he instructed the jury. He argued Carroll didn’t go to the police to report the assault “as a result of they might have investigated”, and located holes in her story.

Tacopina had beforehand lowered Carroll to tears on the witness stand after questioning her on why she didn’t scream through the alleged assault. Carroll stated she had reacted on this means as a result of “it was startling to me that in 2023 a lady could be requested [the question]”.

Final Thursday, Decide Lewis Kaplan gave the defence one final probability to determine whether or not the previous president would testify, after Trump instructed reporters at a golf course in Eire that he was returning to New York to “confront” Carroll. Trump’s legal professionals declined the provide, and the defence rested with out calling any of its personal witnesses.

In a sworn deposition taken earlier this yr, Trump stated he didn’t know Carroll, and branded her accusations a “hoax”. He added that the journalist was “not his kind”, which Kaplan famous was a response Trump had additionally given to allegations of rape made by Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, each of whom testified through the trial.

After being instructed by the decide on Tuesday morning, a jury made up of six males and three ladies will determine whether or not to award damages to Carroll, and in that case, how a lot. The decision have to be unanimous, and Trump can’t face any jail time consequently.

Individually on Monday, a New York decide banned Trump from speaking publicly about contemporary proof gathered within the prison case introduced in opposition to him by the Manhattan district legal professional.

The decide, Juan Merchan, imposed the restriction after prosecutors raised considerations about Trump sharing personal proof from potential witnesses — together with former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels, to whom the previous president allegedly made hush-money funds to hide an affair.

Trump has launched a 3rd marketing campaign for the White Home, and is a frontrunner within the polls amongst present and potential Republican challengers for the get together’s nomination.

Merchan stated final week he was “bending over backwards . . . to verify [Trump] is given each alternative potential to advance his candidacy”, and stated the order wouldn’t forestall the previous president “from [speaking] powerfully and persuasively” concerning the case.

A lawyer for Trump declined to touch upon the order.