Trump deposition to be played at May trial in protesters’ lawsuit
Source: Instyle
A May trial date has been set for a lawsuit that is expected to contain a video deposition of former President Donald Trump taken earlier this month.
The trial is for a civil lawsuit filed by a group of protestors who claim Trump’s security crew beat them at a rally outside Trump Tower in New York in 2015. The lawsuit stalled during Trump’s presidency but has recently gone forward since he left office.
“We’re pleased to have a trial date and look forward to presenting this case to a jury at that time,” Benjamin Dictor, an attorney representing the protesters, told Insider.
The case has been handed to New York Supreme Court Justice Doris Gonzalez, who has ordered jury selection to begin on May 2. After the jury selection process is completed, the trial will begin.
Gonzalez green-lighted a deposition of Trump earlier this month to be used as evidence in the case. On October 18, attorneys representing the protesters deposed the former president for more than four hours in Trump Tower.
In the September 2015 lawsuit, the protesters sued Trump, his campaign, the Trump Organization, and members of Trump’s security crew.
Their lawyers summoned Trump in the case, claiming that the guards attacked their clients as part of their official duties. They noted Trump’s remarks at rallies in which he told attendees to be violent toward anyone who disrupted his events.
According to Dictor, who is also an attorney for the NewsGuild of New York, which represents Insider Union members, Trump declined to answer only “a handful” of questions during the deposition. Gonzalez has not yet decided whether Trump should be forced to answer those questions or how much of the deposition will be shown to jurors.
In a statement following the deposition, Trump called it “baseless harassment” but said he was “pleased to have the opportunity to tell my side of this ridiculous story.”
Now that Trump is no longer president, numerous civil lawsuits have been filed against him.
Another New York state judge has ordered Trump to sit for a deposition in the coming months in a defamation lawsuit brought against him by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos after he publicly rejected her sexual-assault allegations and called his accusers liars.
