During a civil trial in New York on Tuesday, Jessica Leeds claimed that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her on a flight in the late 1970s.
Leeds was testifying in a defamation and rape lawsuit against the former president by writer E. Jean Carroll.
She recounted that Trump put his hand up her skirt while they were in the business class section of a flight to New York in 1978 or 1979. Leeds, who is now 81, said, “There was no conversation. It was like out of the blue… He was trying to kiss me, grabbing my breasts.” Trump has repeatedly denied all allegations of sexual assault and has never faced criminal prosecution for any such claims.
Leeds was called to testify by Carroll's lawyers to try to convince the nine-person jury that Trump has a history of sexual misconduct. Carroll, who is 79, has sued Trump alleging that 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 saw Trump win the presidency.
About a dozen women came forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against Trump in the run-up to the vote. Leeds went public with her 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 denying Leeds' accusation by saying, “Believe me, she would not be my first choice.”
Trump's lawyers confirmed that he would not be testifying. A friend of Carroll's, Lisa Birnbach, testified that Carroll called her shortly after the alleged attack in 1996 to confide in her. “I want the world to know she was telling the truth,” Birnbach testified.
Trump's lawyers argued that Birnbach was motivated by politics, citing comments she has made on podcasts calling Trump a “narcissistic sociopath,” a “Russian agent” and an “asset” of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
Carroll filed her lawsuit late last year after a law took effect in New York that gave victims of sexual assault a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers decades after attacks may have occurred.
The suit seeks unspecified damages and asks that Trump retract his comments. Although no criminal prosecution can stem from Carroll's civil case, if Trump loses, it will be the first time he has ever been held legally liable over an allegation of sexual assault.
The case is one of several legal challenges facing Trump as the 76-year-old Republican seeks a return to the White House in next year's election. Last month, he pleaded not guilty in a criminal case related to a hush-money payment made to a porn star just before the 2016 vote.
Trump is also being investigated over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the southern state of Georgia, his alleged mishandling of classified documents taken from the White House, and his involvement in the storming of the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021.
