A federal judge who will oversee Donald Trump’s sexual assault civil trial in Manhattan says the former president is free to skip attending the trial – but that he cannot claim he did so to avoid “burdens” on the city that his presence in court might cause.
Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan set the ground rules in an order Thursday in response to a request by Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina that jurors be instructed Trump didn’t attend to avoid “logistical burdens.”
In proposed jury instructions submitted Wednesday, Tacopina requested the judge tell panelists: “While no litigant is required to appear at a civil trial, the absence of the defendant in this matter, by design, avoids the logistical burdens that his presence, as the former president, would cause the courthouse and New York City.
“Accordingly, his presence is excused unless and until he is called by either party to testify.”
In his order Thursday, Kaplan said Trump’s lawyers, for now, could not raise the alleged “burdens” to the jury if he chooses not to attend.
“Mr. Trump is free to attend, to testify, or both. He is free also to do none of those things,” Kaplan wrote in the one-page order.
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“In the meantime, there shall be no reference by counsel for Mr. Trump in the presence of the jury panel or the trial jury to Mr. Trump’s alleged desire to testify or to the burdens that any absence on his part allegedly might spare, or might have spared, the Court or the City of New York,” he added.
Trump is set to stand trial in Manhattan federal court beginning next week on allegations that he raped advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s.
Carroll alleges Trump also defamed her in statements he made about the allegations, which were first published in a 2019 New York Magazine book excerpt.
Jury selection in the case is scheduled to begin April 25.
Trump has denied wrongdoing.
