Former US president Donald Trump went on trial on Tuesday over a 30-year rape claim filed by a former advice columnist, with jurors in the civil case hearing her allegation of being attacked in a luxury department store dressing room.
The former president says nothing happened between them.
E Jean Carroll will give evidence that what unfolded in a few minutes in a fitting room in 1996 “would change her life for ever", one of her lawyers, Shawn Crowley, said in an opening statement.
“Filled with fear and shame, she kept silent for decades. Eventually, though, silence became impossible,” Mr Crowley said.
And when she broke that silence in a 2019 memoir, Mr Trump “used the most powerful platform on Earth to lie about what he had done, attack Ms Carroll’s integrity and insult her appearance”.
Trump's lawyer Joe Tacopina painted her story as wildly implausible and short of evidence, and called it “an affront to justice”.
He accused Ms Caroll of pursuing the case for money, status and political reasons.
“It all comes down to: Do you believe the unbelievable?” Mr Tacopina told the jury comprising six men and three women.
He urged the panel in heavily Democratic New York to put politics aside in considering the case against the former Republican president and New York resident.
“You can hate Donald Trump. That’s OK. But there’s a time and a secret place for that. It’s called a ballot box in an election," Mr Tacopina said.
"It’s not here in a court of law. Nobody’s above the law but no one is beneath it.”
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered lawyers at the start of a civil trial to keep their clients and witnesses from making public statements that could lead to violence.
Mr Trump, who is facing a number of legal issues that could threaten his 2024 run for a second term in the White House, denies the allegations.
The start of the trial comes a few weeks after his historic arraignment on criminal charges related to an alleged hush-money payment made to an adult film star shortly before the 2016 election.
What is Trump accused of?
Ms Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine, says she was raped by Mr Trump in the changing room at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.
She said the attack came after Mr Trump asked her for shopping advice.
Ms Carroll first made the allegation in an excerpt from her book published by New York Magazine in 2019.
Mr Trump responded then by saying he never met her, that she was “not my type” and that she was “totally lying”.
Ms Carroll first sued Mr Trump for defamation in 2019 but was unable to include the rape claim because the statute of limitations for the alleged offence had expired.
But a new law took effect in New York in November last year that gives redress to victims of sexual assault decades after attacks may have occurred.
It gave sexual assault victims in the state a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers even when the abuse occurred long ago.
Lawyers for Ms Carroll filed a new suit that accused Mr Trump of battery “when he forcibly raped and groped” her.
It also included defamation for a post that he made on his Truth Social platform where he denied the alleged rape and referred to her as a “complete con job”.
The suit seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for psychological harm, pain and suffering, loss of dignity and damage to her reputation.
Mr Trump is not expected to give evidence, as Ms Carroll's lawyers have said they do not intend to call him to the witness stand.
The trial is likely to last between one and two weeks.
Mr Trump became the first sitting or former president to be charged with a crime when he was arrested in the hush-money case this month.
He 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 any involvement in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
News agencies contributed to this report
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What vitamins do we know are beneficial for living in the UAE
Vitamin D: Highly relevant in the UAE due to limited sun exposure; supports bone health, immunity and mood.
Vitamin B12: Important for nerve health and energy production, especially for vegetarians, vegans and individuals with absorption issues.
Iron: Useful only when deficiency or anaemia is confirmed; helps reduce fatigue and support immunity.
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Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
More on Quran memorisation:
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
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'Tell the Machine Goodnight' by Katie Williams
Penguin Randomhouse
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Where to buy
Limited-edition art prints of The Sofa Series: Sultani can be acquired from Reem El Mutwalli at www.reemelmutwalli.com
What is a robo-adviser?
Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.
These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.
Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.
Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.
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The biog
Year of birth: 1988
Place of birth: Baghdad
Education: PhD student and co-researcher at Greifswald University, Germany
Hobbies: Ping Pong, swimming, reading
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Marital status: Single
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
Know your camel milk:
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Use it: In your morning coffee, to add flavour to homemade ice cream and milk-heavy desserts, smoothies, spiced camel-milk hot chocolate.
Goes well with: chocolate and caramel, saffron, cardamom and cloves. Also works well with honey and dates.
