The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial on Monday rejected a request by prosecutors to allow evidence of sexual assault allegations against the former president in connection with the infamous case. access hollywood tape.
In a report from a Manhattan courtroom, Judge Juan Marchan said such allegations constituted “rumour” against Mr. Trump.
“They were very biased and given what we know today, it was just a rumor at this point,” Marchan said.
The tape, a 2005 video of President Trump making lewd comments about women, was aired a month before the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors can tell jurors what President Trump said on the tape, but the judge cannot play the tape or present evidence of the sexual misconduct allegations that surfaced in the weeks after the leak. He also said that he could not.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg proves Trump was allegedly motivated to pay porn actress Stormy Daniels to hush her in 2016 to help her election prospects As a method, they asked Marchand for permission to use the tape and related materials as evidence against Trump.
Prosecutors said Monday that the tapes by the three women and the subsequent sexual assault allegations put the Trump campaign in a “jeopardy” and insisted it was important to be able to prove it to a jury. politiko.
In an order last month, Marchan ruled that prosecutors would not be allowed to play the tape during the trial, but they could use testimony about the tape. Machan said at the time that he would hold off on deciding whether to allow prosecutors to use the sexual assault charge on the first day of the trial.
“A compromise must be made to avoid unfair prejudice against the defendant,” Marchan wrote in his order concurring with President Trump.
“This court will allow the public to elicit testimony about a videotaped interview that surfaced on October 7, 2016, containing comments of a sexual nature that the defendant feared could undermine his presidential ambitions. We have ruled that this is the appropriate balance,” Marchand wrote. “However, the tape itself does not need to be introduced into evidence or played for the jury.”
Marchan reiterated Monday that the tape itself cannot be played for the jury, according to reports. politikohe said, “What I didn’t want was for the jury to hear Mr. Trump’s voice.”
The judge also ruled that prosecutors cannot use footage from a videotape deposition that President Trump submitted during his lawsuit against author E. Jean Carroll, who accused former President Trump of sexual assault. It was ruled that it could not be done. According to CNN, Marchan said that introducing evidence from the Carroll case would “incorporate the trial into the trial.”
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Marchand’s decision on allowable evidence comes ahead of jury selection, which is expected to take days, and possibly weeks, before the parties can begin presenting their case.
Mr. Bragg, a Democrat, indicted Mr. Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records related in part to payments to Mr. Daniels. Trump has maintained his innocence, and the former president denounced the incident as political “persecution” before entering court Monday.
