Trump
teen rape accuser abruptly cancels news conference
The
accuser alleges the real estate mogul raped her on several occasions
when she was 13.
By JOSH GERSTEIN AND
TIMOTHY NOAH 11/3/16, 2:12 AM CET
LOS ANGELES — A
woman who has filed federal lawsuits accusing Donald Trump of
repeatedly raping her two decades ago, when she was 13, abruptly
canceled a news conference Wednesday where she was to detail her
extraordinary claims against the U.S. Republican presidential
nominee.
In the most recent
suit, Trump’s accuser asserts that while she was exploring a
modeling career in 1994, she attended a series of parties at the
Manhattan home of prominent investor Jeffrey Epstein. She alleges
that during those parties the real estate mogul raped her on several
occasions, including one instance in which she says Trump tied her to
a bed.
Attorney and legal
commentator Lisa Bloom announced earlier Wednesday that the woman
would appear at Bloom’s Woodland Hills law office at 3 p.m. local
time and apparently give up the “Jane Doe” pseudonym used in her
recent suits.
However, at the
appointed hour, Bloom said the news conference was off.
“Jane Doe has
received numerous threats today,” Bloom told the assembled
journalists and TV cameras. “She has decided she is too afraid to
show her face … She is in terrible fear.”
Bloom apologized to
the press corps, but declined to answer any shouted questions
including one asking if she’d been in touch with Hillary Clinton’s
presidential campaign.
Through his
attorney, Trump has flatly denied the anonymous woman’s
allegations.
“It is
categorically untrue. It is completely frivolous. It is baseless. It
is irresponsible,” Trump attorney Alan Garten told POLITICO in
September. “I won’t even discuss the merits because it gives it
credibility that it doesn’t deserve.”
The woman making the
claims is referred to as “Jane Doe” in the most recent court
complaints filed in New York, but as “Katie Johnson” in a similar
suit filed in California earlier this year.
“I loudly pleaded
with Defendant Trump to stop, but he did not,” Jane Doe wrote in a
formal declaration accompanying her recent suits. “Defendant Trump
responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his
open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted. …
Immediately following this rape, Defendant Trump threatened me that,
were I ever to reveal any of the details of Defendant Trump’s
sexual and physical abuse of me, my family and I would be physically
harmed if not killed.”
Doe names Trump and
Epstein as defendants in the suits and says they knew she was well
under 17 — the age of consent. “I understood that both Mr. Trump
and Mr. Epstein knew that I was 13 years old,” she wrote.
A lawyer for Epstein
declined to the comment on the lawsuits.
Trump’s accuser
also submitted declarations from two other women, both anonymous. One
says she worked as a party planner for Epstein, was tasked with
getting “attractive adolescent women to attend these parties” and
“personally witnessed the Plaintiff being forced to perform various
sexual acts with Donald J. Trump and Mr. Epstein.”
The other woman says
she attended school with Trump’s accuser at the time and was told
by her about being “subject to sexual contact by the Defendants at
parties in New York City during the summer of 1994.”
About a decade ago,
Epstein came under investigation by local and federal authorities
near his Palm Beach, Florida, home over allegations that he solicited
underage girls to have sex with him at that residence and another on
an island he owned in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Epstein pleaded
guilty in June 2008 to two state felony charges relating to
prostitution and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. He served only
13 months before being released but was required to register as a sex
offender.
Trump has publicly
acknowledged that he knew Epstein and was aware of the investor’s
interest in “younger” women.
“I’ve known Jeff
for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine back
in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he
likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the
younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
A Trump associate
told POLITICO last year that Trump wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing
by Epstein and that he and the billionaire investor were not
particularly close.
“He was a member
of one of Trump’s clubs where he would visit with women and
business associates, but there was no formal relationship,”
the source close to
Trump said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The potential
political implications of the allegations are complicated for Hillary
Clinton because her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also had
significant ties to Epstein. After leaving office in 2001, Bill
Clinton took celebrities on Epstein’s 727 for a trip to Africa to
look at Clinton Foundation anti-AIDS work.
Bill Clinton
reportedly took more than two dozen flights on Epstein-owned planes,
according to flight logs. In addition, during Epstein’s plea
negotiations in 2007, lawyers for the financier claimed he helped
found the Clinton Global Initiative, one of the Clinton Foundation’s
key projects.
“Mr. Epstein was
part of the original group that conceived the Clinton Global
Initiative,” attorneys Alan Dershowitz and Gerald Lefcourt wrote,
in a letter obtained by Fox News.
Spokespeople for the
former president and the Clinton Foundation did not immediately
respond to requests for comment on the Epstein connection.
In addition to the
anonymity of the accuser and the supporting witnesses, some of the
circumstances under which the story of the alleged rapes emerged
earlier this year have led to questions about its credibility. News
reports have said that a man who formerly served as a producer for
tabloid talk-show host Jerry Springer was offering an interview with
the alleged victim in exchange for money.
The first suit over
the alleged rapes was filed in federal court in Riverside,
California, in April by someone acting without an attorney and using
the name “Katie Johnson.” That suit named both Trump and Epstein
as defendants, alleging that the two men held Johnson as a “sex
slave” and repeatedly forced her to engage in sexual acts against
her will.
U.S. District Court
Judge Dolly Gee dismissed the case in May, ruling that Johnson’s
complaint didn’t raise valid claims under federal law. Gee, an
appointee of President Barack Obama, noted that the suit cited a
criminal statute that doesn’t give rise to civil damages and that
the civil statute Johnson cited only applies to actions based on
“race-based or class-based animus.”
Subsequent news
reports raised doubts about who filed the suit. Johnson claimed she
had just $300 in assets and that she was living at a home in
Twentynine Palms, California, but Radar Online reported neighbors
said the home had been foreclosed upon and vacant since its owner
died last year.
A new suit was filed
in New York in June, seeking to proceed against Trump and Epstein
under the Jane Doe pseudonym. The case was brought by a New
Jersey-based attorney, Tom Meagher.
However, the suit
was withdrawn Sept. 16 after the plaintiff apparently failed to serve
the complaint on Trump or Epstein.
Another complaint
was filed in federal court in Manhattan on Sept. 30. Several other
lawyers have joined the case on Doe’s behalf, but there is still no
indication that Trump or Epstein have been formally served with the
suit.
Authors:
Josh Gerstein and
Timothy Noah
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