As has been well-documented — often by himself in his own stump speeches and media appearances — Donald Trump is no stranger to lawsuits and courts. Amid the flurry of litigation the candidate has been embroiled in, though, one case in particular stands out: Trump has been accused of repeatedly raping a teenage girl, according to a case recently filed in federal court. The case was initially dismissed in April due to procedural errors, but was re-submitted and accepted in late June. The new filing includes a much stronger legal claim, and there’s much about it the voting public should perhaps be aware of.
In short, Trump is accused of sexually assaulting the plaintiff, who has filed as Jane Doe, four times during the summer of 1994. According to the complaint, the victim explicitly asked Trump to stop during the fourth encounter, and he struck her in return. Trump is also accused of threatening the young girl, claiming that a 12-year-old named Maria “disappeared” after she complained about Trump’s sexual assaults, and that the same could happen to the plaintiff, who at the time was 13 years old.
The suit states that the young girl was held at the apartment of shady financier Jeffery Epstein, and that Epstein also sexually assaulted her, and that she was one of several girls Epstein kept on the premises to have sex with powerful men. Coincidentally, Bill Clinton is also linked to Epstein — who’s served prison time for soliciting underage prostitutes — and has come under fire for taking trips on Epstein’s private plane, which has been dubbed the “Lolita Express.”
It should be noted that the charges made by the plaintiff cannot be brought against Trump in criminal court. Under New York law, the statute of limitations for any child sex offense is five years after the victim turns 18, so any possibility of Trump being arrested on these charges has long since passed. Even if Jane Doe wanted to come forward and have Trump arrested, that would be legally impossible.
Unlike many cases of this nature, there’s also a witness affidavit filed in the case, by a person named as Tiffany Doe, who claims to have been employed by Epstein between 1991 and 2000 as, essentially, a procurer of young girls. Tiffany Doe has confirmed she witnessed every claim made by the plaintiff in a court of law, and ended her witness statement with this:
I am coming forward to swear to the truthfulness of the physical and sexual abuse that I personally witnessed of minor females at the hands of Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein . . . I swear to these facts under the penalty for perjury even though I fully understand that the life of myself and my family is now in grave danger.
It’s only fair to note that while Trump has been accused of rape and sexual harassment both in and out of court, he has never been convicted of any form of sexual assault. Jeffrey Epstein, the other defendant in the case, however, has been. In fact, Epstein is currently registered as a Level 3 sex offender with the state of New York, which the state defines as “high risk of repeat offense and a threat to public safety.”
Epstein is on the sex offender register due to a 2005 undercover investigation by Palm Beach, Florida police that found Epstein had a network of young women recruiting teenage girls to give him massages and have sex with him, charges similar to the accusations made by Tiffany Doe in the Trump suit. He was convicted in 2008 of a charge of soliciting prostitution from girls as young as 14 and spent eighteen months in jail. Epstein has also been sued, repeatedly, by women who claim that he molested them or otherwise sexually assaulted them. He’s also been accused of providing underage girls to world leaders and celebrities.
Again, Trump is accused of committing a crime, but he will never go to a criminal court over these accusations. We’ll see just what the civil courts system sees as the merits of the case as the suit unfolds.