Donald Trump groped me on flight, woman tells US civil trial

AFP |  New York

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com    

A woman told a New York civil trial on Tuesday that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her on a flight in the United States in the late 1970s.

Jessica Leeds recounted the alleged attack while testifying in the writer E. Jean Carroll's rape and defamation lawsuit against the ex-president.

Leeds told Manhattan's federal court that Trump put his hand up her skirt in the business class section of a flight to New York in 1978 or 1979.

"There was no conversation. It was like out of the blue," said Leeds, now 81.

"He was trying to kiss me, grabbing my breasts," she added.

Trump has repeatedly and strenuously denied all allegations of sexual assault and has never been criminally prosecuted over any such claims.

Leeds was called to testify by Carroll's lawyers to try to persuade the nine-person jury that Trump has engaged in a pattern of sexual misconduct.

Carroll, 79, has sued Trump alleging he sexually assaulted her in a changing room at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

She also claims that Trump then defamed her when he called her "a complete con job" after she went public with the allegation in 2019.

Leeds first made her allegations in an interview with The New York Times weeks before the 2016 election that sent Trump to the White House.

About a dozen women came forward accusing Trump of sexual misconduct in the runup to the vote.

Leeds went public with the accusation after Trump refuted sexual assault allegations during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.

"I was furious because he was lying," Leeds recalled. Jurors also watched a video of Trump's previous denial of Leeds' accusation, where he said, "Believe me, she would not be my first choice." Trump's lawyers confirmed that the ex-president would not be testifying.