Former President Donald Trump stormed out of a Manhattan courtroom Friday as lawyers for columnist E. Jean Carroll delivered a summation in her defamation case against the 2024 GOP front-runner, injecting drama in the closing hours of the case before jurors deliberated.
Just minutes after Ms. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, began her summation, Mr. Trump rose from his seat at the defense table and walked toward the exit, pausing to scan the packed courtroom as members of the Secret Service leaped up to follow him out.
The unexpected departure prompted Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to speak up, briefly interrupting the closing argument to say: “The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom.”
Mr. Trump eventually returned for his side’s closing argument from defense attorney Alina Habba.
Ms. Habba, in her closing, played a video of Mr. Trump calling the case a witch hunt.
“You know why he has not wavered?” Ms. Habba asked the jury. “Because it’s the truth.”
That statement prompted an objection that the judge sustained with a warning that “if you violate my instructions again, Ms. Habba, you may have consequences.”
A nine-person jury retired for deliberations after a lunch break. They must decide whether Ms. Carroll is entitled to damages because of 2019 comments in which Mr. Trump disputed her claim that he raped her in a department store dressing room in 1996, declaring: “She’s not my type.”
At a previous trial, a jury awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million after finding Mr. Trump liable for sex abuse and defamation claims.
The jury rejected Ms. Carroll’s rape allegation.
Judge Kaplan said the liability finding from the first trial would carry over to the second trial, so jurors need only determine how much more Mr. Trump should pay, if anything.
Mr. Trump left Friday after Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said: “Donald Trump has tried to normalize conduct that is abnormal.”
The lawyer also told jurors that the current case was not about sexual assault.
“We had that case,” she said, referencing the first trial. “That’s why Donald Trump’s testimony was so short yesterday. He doesn’t get a do-over this time.”
She said the jury should award $12 million to repair Ms. Carroll’s reputation and another $12 million for the suffering she has endured because of Mr. Trump’s attacks. Then she said an “unusually high punitive award” was also necessary against a man worth billions of dollars “to have any hope of stopping Donald Trump.”
Mr. Trump testified for less than five minutes Thursday, saying he “just wanted to defend myself” when he criticized Ms. Carroll five years ago for making the rape accusation in a magazine article.
Judge Kaplan limited what Mr. Trump could say on the witness stand because the previous trial found him liable.
The former president lashed out on his social media platform earlier Friday, calling the trial a “sham” and a “disgrace to our country.”
“I don’t know who this woman is, I don’t know who she is, where she came from,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We cannot let our country go into this abyss.”
Mr. Trump gave a speech during closing arguments in a separate New York civil trial on claims his real estate company submitted fraudulent financial statements to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance.
The judge in that case let him speak for several minutes before cutting him off.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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