Who are Trump accusers Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff?
Jessica Leeds was interviewed by CNN and Natasha Stoynoff was interviewed by People Magazine on ABC’s Nightline (Screenshots via YouTube)
In the same decision that allowed a jury to view the infamous “Access Hollywood” video, a federal judge cleared two more women who accused former President Donald Trump of sexual misconduct to appear in the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll to testify against him.
Senior US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said the allegations made by businesswoman Jessica Leeds and People magazine author Natasha Stoynoff were too similar to Carroll’s to ignore.
“Mr Trump’s attempt to downplay the similarity between his alleged actions in relation to Ms Leeds and Ms Stoynoff on the one hand and Ms Carroll on the other is not very convincing,” the judge wrote in a 23-page opinion on Friday. “The alleged acts are far more similar than different in essential respects. The alleged victim in each case alleges that Mr. Trump suddenly sexually assaulted them. In the cases of Ms. Carroll and Ms. Stoynoff, he allegedly did so at a location after closing a door behind him, which gave him privacy. In all three cases he is said to have done so without consent.”
Carroll claims Trump raped her in the fitting room of a Bergdorf Goodman store in the mid-1990s. She and the former president are preparing for April’s trial, which the presiding judge said would amount to a “he said, she said” case.
“There will be no physical evidence to support either side in the trial,” Kaplan noted, adding that the credibility of Trump’s accusers will weigh heavily on the trial.
At least 26 women have accused Trump of some form of sexual misconduct.
With a high-profile showdown in federal court shedding light on three of those cases, Law&Crime breaks down Leeds and Stoynoff’s allegations – and how they may affect them Carroll vs Trump court hearing.
1. The women’s allegations against Trump span more than a quarter century.
The Access Hollywood tape almost ended Trump’s career when he boasted to Billy Bush about grabbing women “by the chest.” Both women allege that Trump practiced what he preached in the video in alleged incidents decades apart.
Donald Trump and Billy Bush step off the bus in “Access Hollywood” video. (Screenshot via NBC)
Leeds claims she sat next to Trump in a first-class seat on a flight from Texas to New York in 1979. My boobs, pulls me to him, pulls to me.”
“As he started to put his hand up my skirt, I realized that no one was going to save me but me, and I was in the hallway, I managed to roll out of the chair and grabbed my purse, and I went back to my back seat,” Leeds said in a statement.
At a fundraiser for the Humane Society of New York at Saks Fifth Avenue some time later, Leeds said she was handing out seat assignments as Trump and his wife approached.
“I remember you. You’re that C— from the plane,” Trump scoffed, according to her statement.
In 2005, Stoynoff said she went to Mar-a-Lago to interview the then-real estate mogul and his wife, Melania Trump, for People magazine. She claims the trouble started after the then-future president offered to show her a painting that hung in one of the rooms and then closed the door.
“I turn around and he’s right here, and he grabs my shoulders and pushes me against this wall and starts kissing me,” Stoynoff testified.
Stoynoff said she was “completely shocked” and pushed Trump back twice. She says she broke free after a butler entered the room.
Together with Carroll’s report — dated sometime in the mid-1990s — the women’s allegations span a little over a quarter century.
2. All three women say Trump’s alleged actions constitute state or federal crimes.
Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump under New York’s Adult Survivors Act went astray to charge the former president with six felonies, including first-degree rape.
All of the laws cited in Carroll’s lawsuit refer to the New York Penal Code. The other five statutes are third-degree rape (§130.25), first-degree sexual abuse (§130.65), third-degree sexual abuse (§130.55), sexual misconduct (§130.20), and violent touch (§130.52).
E. Jean Carroll (photo courtesy of Ms. Carroll)
If the Leeds story is true, the mile-high crime committed by Trump was a federal crime.
Judge Kaplan writes in a notable footnote: “49 USC §§ 46506 and 46501(2) make it a felony to commit an act on an ‘aircraft in the United States’ that violates a provision of Chapter 109A of Title 18 of the United States States Code would be violated if the act had been committed in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
From here, the judge notes that Leeds’ allegations fit under the federal definition of unwanted “sexual contact,” which would have been illegal in a particular maritime and territorial jurisdiction under 18 USC § 2244(a)(1).
As for Stoynoff’s claims, Kaplan found that they violated Florida law, including punishing “sexual violence.”
The judge stressed that these results are the reason Leeds and Stoynoff can testify.
“To be admissible under rule 415, evidence of sexual assault by a person other than the plaintiff must also have been a federal or state crime,” the judge wrote. “That requirement is met here.”
3. All three women shared their accounts with reporters after the Access Hollywood tape was released.
In addition to the similarities in their stories, Carroll and Leeds are connected through one interviewer: CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who spoke to both women.
Leeds told Cooper that she decided to go public after hearing Trump’s denials at the second debate.
“I didn’t sleep that night, so the next morning I wrote a letter to the editor of The Times just to get it off my chest,” Leeds said on the show. “And I thought that was all. I really did. I thought I would be lucky if I published a letter.”
Instead, the New York Times published a profile of Leeds and another woman, Rachel Crooks, who was a 22-year-old Bayrock Group receptionist when she said Trump kissed her without her consent in 2005. Several radio interviews with Leeds followed.
Carroll also went to Cooper’s show, where the counselor claimed Trump pulled down his pants and entered her. Trump has attempted to use this Cooper interview against Carroll by misleadingly claiming that Carroll called rape “very sexy.”
In her interview, Carroll told Cooper, “I think most people think rape is sexy,” but she made that comment to contrast that public perception with what she was told.
“It wasn’t sexual,” Carroll told Cooper. “It just hurt.”
Stoynoff broke her silence with her employer: People.
“In those few minutes alone with Trump, my self-esteem plummeted to zero,” Stoynoff wrote. “How could I feel so violated by the actions of one man? I had interviewed A-list celebrities for over 20 years, but what he had done was a first. Did he think I was flattered?”
PEN, the magazine’s broadcast division, short for People/Entertainment Weekly Network, also did an on-camera interview with Stoynoff.
4. Trump insulted all women after they made their allegations – in remarkably similar ways.
After Carroll went public with her rape allegations, Trump offered reporters an odd denial: “She’s not my type.” The former president has since repeated that defense several times, even stating in a statement that he didn’t think he carroll found attractive.
The jibe was remarkably similar to Trump’s response to Leeds allegations.
“Believe me, she wouldn’t be my first choice,” Trump said at a campaign event.
Carroll’s legal team says that insinuating that his accusers are unattractive is part of Trump’s playbook, and that there is certainly good reason to believe the former president is lying about Carroll not being his type.
In the same statement, Trump apparently mistook a photo of Carroll for one of his ex-wives, Marla Maples.
E Jean Carroll and Marla Maples (Photo by Carroll via Images via Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Glamour; Photo by Maples via AP via Adam Scull/PHOTOlink / MediaPunch /IPX)
Trump’s denial formed the basis of Carroll’s original defamation lawsuit.
In all three women’s cases, Trump either implied or claimed that they were liars. He noted that Stoynoff ended up profiling him and Melania Trump without mentioning the alleged incident.
Why didn’t the author of the 12-year-old People Magazine article mention the “incident” in her story? Because it didn’t happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 13, 2016
Reflecting on the interview in People, Stoynoff said she feared the professional consequences of speaking out just a year before the phrase “Me Too” was coined by activist Tarana Burke and more than a decade before it became a national one movement became.
“I was afraid that a famous, powerful, wealthy man could and would discredit and destroy me, especially if I killed his coveted PEOPLE feature,” Stoynoff wrote.
The process in Carroll vs Trump is scheduled for April.
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https://lawandcrime.com/live-trials/e-jean-carroll-rape-suit/what-to-know-about-2-other-donald-trump-accusers-allowed-to-testify-at-e-jean-carroll-rape-trial/ Who are Trump accusers Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff?