A new York(CNN) — E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, testified in her abuse and defamation case against former President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning.
Carroll stated, "I'm here because Donald Trump sexually assaulted me and denied it when I wrote about it. "I'm here to try to get my life back," the defendant said. "He lied and destroyed my reputation."
Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the spring of 1996 and then defaming her when she came out with the claims. Carroll is suing Trump for violence and defamation. Trump has always refuted her claims.
A former store manager's testimony
Cheryl Beall, the former manager of the Bergdorf Goodman Women's Store, was Carroll's first witness in the civil trial and testified for less than an hour before Carroll took the stand.
Beall had an office on the sixth floor next to the lingerie area where Carroll claims Trump assaulted her during his ten years of employment there, which ended in 1998.
She demonstrated the arrangement of the sixth level to the jury using a floor plan from that era, describing the fitting rooms as a space with wooden walls that touched the ceiling. She testified that the door to the changing room automatically locked when closed.
Beall claimed that while fitting room doors were typically kept locked while not in use, they were "regularly" left open.
Although Bergdorf Goodman set aside at least one worker to watch over each department at all times, Beall said it wasn't unusual for the sixth floor to remain unattended, especially on a slow evening.
There will be updates to this latest story.
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