Trump accuser Jessica Leeds hopes to ‘never’ testify again after E Jean Carroll trial

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox

Get our free Inside Washington email

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Jessica Leeds, who testified on Tuesday about Donald Trump allegedly attacking her as part of writer E Jean Carroll’s rape case against the former president, said she never hopes to share her experience again.

“I’m exhausted, I’m above it all and I hope I never have to tell my story again,” she told The Independent as she left the Manhattan courtroom.

Earlier in the day, Ms Leeds told jurors about how on a flight to New York in the late 1970s, Mr Trump allegedly violently sexually assaulted her when she was seated next to him in first class. He denies this took place.

“I was invited up to the first-class cabin. I was the only woman there. Donald Trump introduced himself,” she said on the witness stand, alleging he then “grabbed me and groped me. It was like he had forty zillion hands. He put his hand up my skirt. That gave me a jolt. I wiggled out and stormed back to coach”.

After the incident, Ms Leeds told the court she didn’t share her experience with “anybody” because it didn’t “occur” to her that was an option.

“In that time and place ... men could basically get away with a lot,” she told the jury.

The accuser also testified that Donald Trump allegedly referenced the attack at a later date when the two encountered each other at a 1981 fundraising gala.

He allegedly told her: “I remember you. You’re that c*** from the airplane,” according to Law & Crime.

She said Mr Trump’s comment “was like cold water over me. He walked away and I went home”.

Once her testimony was done, Ms Leeds headed out of the New York courtroom and voiced her support for Ms Carroll.

“Her story rings true to me,” Ms Leeds told reporters. “And also I’d like to encourage anyone who has suffered sexual aggression to know they are not alone, and they can speak up.”

At the end of April, a federal court began hearing the case against Mr Trump from Ms Carroll, a well known advice columnist and former Elle magazine writer, who alleges the former president raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s.

On Monday, the judge in the case rejected a petition from Mr Trump for a mistrial.

Mr Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina had requested a mistrial in the civil battery and defamation trial, arguing the former president has been subject to “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” and questions that “mischaracterized the facts of this case to the jury.”