WARNING: This article contains details and allegations about sexual assault and may apply to people who have experienced or know someone who has been affected by sexual assault.

Closing arguments are expected on Monday after former US President Donald Trump turned down his last chance to testify in a civil trial in which a longtime columnist accused him of raping her in a dressing room at a luxury department store in the mid-1990s.

Trump, a Republican presidential nominee in 2024, was given until 5 p.m. ET Sunday by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to file a request for testimony. No such filing was made.

On Thursday, Chaplain had given Trump additional time to change his mind and seek testimony, though the judge had not promised he would grant such a request for a retrial so Trump could comment.

Kaplan noted that he heard news on Thursday in which Trump, while visiting his golf course in Doonbeg, Ireland, told reporters that he was “likely” to attend the hearing.

“I’m going to go back early because a woman made a claim that was completely false, it was fake,” Trump said in Ireland.

Trump was not present during the two-week trial in Manhattan, where writer E. Jean Carroll testified for several days and repeated allegations of sexual assault that she first made public in her 2019 memoir.

Trump didn’t have to be present. After the start of the trial, the date of which has been known for several weeks, he set off on his trip to Europe.

Carroll is seeking millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages.

The deliberations of the jury are to take place this week.

Violent encounter, claims Carroll

On the witness stand, Carroll, 79, testified that Trump, 76, raped her in the spring of 1996 — she wasn’t sure of the exact date — after they met at the entrance to the Bergdorf Goodman department store in midtown Manhattan.

She said the encounter began as a fun and flirtatious outing when Trump persuaded her to help him shop for a gift for another woman. She said they ended up in the store’s desolate lingerie department, where they teased each other about trying on a see-through bodysuit.

As Carroll recalled, laughter accompanied her into a dressing room, where Trump turned violent, slamming her against a wall, pulling aside her pantyhose and raping her before kneeling him and fleeing the store.

The jury also watched lengthy excerpts from a recorded testimony in October in which Trump vehemently denied raping Carroll or ever really knowing her.

In his testimony, Trump said Carroll invented it. He called it “a false, disgusting lie” delivered by a “maniac” who was trying to boost sales of her book.

He also repeated comments he had made in statements that she wasn’t his “type”.

“She’s not my type and that’s 100 percent true,” he said.

repetitions Access Hollywood claim

And he repeated his claims in 2005 Access Hollywood Video in which he boasted that famous men can grab women by the genitals without asking.

“Historically, that’s true with stars,” he said.

“If you look at the last million years, I guess that was largely true,” he said. “Not always, but mostly true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”

If that Access Hollywood After the recording came to light in October 2016, Trump downplayed it during a presidential debate as “a banter in the dressing room, a private conversation that happened many years ago.”

Carroll sued Trump in November, minutes after New York state enacted a law allowing adult victims of sexual assault to sue others, even if the assaults happened decades earlier.

Two women were also called out by Carroll’s team for their own allegations, including Canadian journalist Natasha Stoynoff, who testified that Trump forcefully kissed her against her will in 2005 while showing her his Florida home while working on behalf of the People magazine was.

Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote a letter to the judge on Sunday to complain that Trump still hasn’t made any posts dated April 26. And she noted that he made derogatory remarks about the trial in Ireland three days ago.

Following the April 26 postings on Truth Social, Judge Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s attorney, said Trump’s comments were “highly inappropriate” and expressed concern that Trump was attempting to communicate with the jury “about things that… has no business.”

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll did.