‘Why didn’t you shout?’: Trump lawyer takes hostile approach to rape trial | US News

D.Onardo Trump had good reason to believe he found the man to get him off the hook. It made a name for itself.

Twelve years ago, he successfully defended a police officer on duty who was charged with escorting an intoxicated woman to her home and then raping her. He won an acquittal for one of his New York police officers accused of notorious assault and sodomy against a Haitian-American. Abner Ruimain the meantime other parties I went to jail.

Perhaps most infamously, taco pina was created. extract Joran Van der Throat from Aruba prison accused of murdering teenage American tourist, Natalie Holloway. Van der Sloot murdered another woman in Peru.

As a law student, Tacopina worked on the team representing mafia boss John Gotti, but also extorted protection money from his family’s shop, and vowed to act for the mob. Tacopina stays connected to his roots as owner and president of the Italian League football club. SparHe has also invested in the top flight team, Romeand previously served as a director.

Whether Tacopina has been as effective in defending Trump as his other clients will be determined next week by a New York jury listening to advice columnist E Gene Carroll’s civil trial. alleges the former president raped her She is also seeking defamation damages after the former president called her a liar and claimed her accusations were politically motivated.

Tacopina’s approach, however, raised more than a few eyebrows in the legal community and stunned some observers in court with its antiquity. A tactic that seems to have reinforced Carroll’s case. Judge Louis Kaplan did little to cover up his irritation at Tacopina.

Jurors may still give Tacopina and Trump the last laugh. I don’t know yet.

Tacopina said he would not call defense witnesses because Carroll’s own words would undermine her claim that she was raped in a locker room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury New York department store, 27 years ago. said it would show that Carroll is at the center of political intrigue.

the first part didn’t work Carroll gave evidence for three days at the beginning of the trial. The former Elle magazine advice columnist proved to be a formidable witness who turned Tacopina’s attempts to depict the contradictions in her story to her advantage.

Yes, Carroll has provided four different reasons over the years as to why she didn’t scream while Trump allegedly attacked her. That doesn’t prove that she was lying.

“You can’t blame me for not screaming.” carol pushed back.

“One of the reasons women don’t come forward is because people always ask, ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ Some women scream. Some women don’t. It shuts them up.”

Besides, if she was going to lie, it would have been easiest to say she screamed, she said.

This one response rocked Tacopina’s lawsuit, especially because it exposed the often brutal style of violent lawyers when challenging women who allege they had been sexually assaulted. In 2011, he won an acquittal For a police officer accused of raping a drunken woman, obsessing her over money and being mentally unstable. claimed to back up the police officer’s allegations that she had tried to seduce him.

It’s an approach that works even less well today than it did then, made evident by the row of men at the defense attorney table, as opposed to the women leading Carroll’s case.

Still, Tacopina pushed the strategy forward.He asked Carol multiple times why she didn’t call the police, so the judge finally said that was enough and that he would “move on.” argued with confidence She couldn’t be ‘ashamed’ of being assaulted and go to the police, even if that’s what she advised the woman being attacked to do in her suffering aunt’s column in Elle.

“I’m of the silent generation, born in 1943. Women like me were taught to keep my chin up and not complain,” she said. I never will.”

As Tacopina promised, it wasn’t immediately clear if Carol’s own words had ruined her case.

Perhaps out of desperation, Tacopina allowed Kaplan a judge’s “unfair and biased verdict,” mischaracterization of evidence in Carroll’s favor, and evidence from another woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse. asked to declare a miscarriage of justice for what he explained. The judge dismissed the request without comment.

Other witnesses provided evidence, so that left the second part of Tacopina’s strategy.

In his opening statement, Trump’s lawyer falsely accused Carroll of colluding with two friends to rape the former president because he “hated” him for winning the 2016 election. The two friends, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, told the court that they were the only people Carol had spoken to about the alleged attack.

The pair told jurors that the advisory columnist had sworn to keep them secret, honoring Carroll’s wishes and never mentioning the alleged rape again until Carroll’s accusations against Trump went public in 2019. Told.

Tacopina claims the three made up a big lie.

“They engineered to undermine Donald Trump politically.” He said.

Tacopina’s cross-examination of retired TV anchor Martin was a key plot in this strategy. By the time it was over, it seemed to have defeated its own purpose.

Martin testified that Carol told her about the alleged rape during a conversation in the TV presenter’s kitchen within a day or two of the attack. Tacopina then confronted Martin with a series of emails calling Trump an “enemy” and saying it “needs to be cleaned up.”

“I hate this man who stinks and is ruining the world,” she wrote in one message.

Tacopina’s purpose was clear. It was to show how much Martin hated Trump. In September 2017, there was even an email with near-conspiratorial content.

“This has to stop. As soon as we both get well [sic] If we conspire, we must again do our patriotic duty,” Martin wrote to Carroll.

Advice columnist replied: I have something special for you when we meet.

Is this a smoking gun? Was Carroll’s ‘something special’ plan to falsely accuse Trump of rape?

Martin said in court that he thought Carol was talking about a present.

“Not live,” she added hastily, causing a rare burst of laughter in court.

Yet Tacopina successfully portrayed Martin as being highly hostile to Trump in hopes of calling into question her credibility as a witness. I even heard that they held a party to celebrate the raising of the

But Tacopina didn’t stop moving forward.

Much to Martin’s embarrassment, Trump’s lawyers began reading behind-the-scenes messages criticizing Carroll after an Elle columnist published accusations against the former president 23 years later.

Martin texted his daughter complaining that Carol had turned Trump’s pursuit into a “lifestyle” and enjoyed the “admiration” it brought. It’s too deep,” he said.

Martin had another concern. Her Carol’s going public was to expose her as well, affecting her safety and members of her family.

“My family was worried about identity checks, so it was tough,” Martin told the court.

Martin admitted that he had been “biting his frustrations” with Carol.

However, as embarrassing as it may have been for Martin, the text message thwarted Tacopina’s attempt to portray the woman as conspiring. If so, why was she so critical of making it public?

Tacopina’s position was further weakened when Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, emphasized the point, asking Martin about the text in which he commented that “a little chit-chat 25 years ago” had dragged her into the matter. turned into

Wasn’t that proof that Carroll actually told Martin about the alleged attack?

At the beginning of the trial, Tacopina described Carroll’s story as an “insult to justice”, highly implausible, and lacking evidence. accused of filing a lawsuit for a reason.

“After all, do you believe the unbelievable?” he said.

A jury will decide shortly.