US President, Donald Trump has dismissed allegations that he raped a woman in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s as “fiction”.
The US president says he never met E. Jean Carroll and accused her of making up the allegation to sell a new book but Ms Carroll says she did not report the alleged attack at the time after being advised by a friend she had no chance of winning in court.
Her story was published in New York magazine on Friday. In the article, she described meeting Trump in late 1995 or early 1996, in Bergdorf Goodman. She says she recognised him as the “real estate tycoon” and that he told her he was buying a present for “a girl”.
She says Trump knew she was a TV agony aunt and the two joked around, encouraging each other to try on some lingerie. She alleges that they then went to a dressing room, where she accuses him of raping her. Both Trump and Ms Carroll were aged around 50 at the time, and he was married to Marla Maples.
Ms Carroll says she told two friends about the alleged incident, one of whom advised her to go to the police. But she says the other advised her against telling anyone saying: “Forget it! He has 200 lawyers. He’ll bury you.” The accusation is one of six alleged attacks by “awful men” that Ms Carroll details in her article.
“I’ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book, that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section” the US president said in a statement. Trump also encouraged anyone with information that the Democratic Party is working with Ms Carroll or New York Magazine to notify the White House.
More than a dozen women have previously made sexual misconduct allegations against Mr Trump, which he has denied.
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