NEW YORK _ The New York advice columnist who claims President Donald Trump raped her two decades ago is demanding a sample of his DNA as part of her lawsuit accusing him of lying about the alleged encounter.
E. Jean Carroll, who went public with her claim in a June magazine article and sued Trump in November, says the sample may help prove her story if it matches DNA found on a dress she wore during the alleged encounter.
Carroll on Thursday sent Trump a formal notice requesting he submit to a physical examination at a lab in Washington on March 2, according to a copy of the document provided by her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan. The attorney argues the request is a "standard operating procedure" in such cases.
"This case turns on whether Donald Trump lied when he said that he had not sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll and, in fact, had never even met her," Kaplan said in a statement.
Trump has denied the allegations, as well as claims of sexual assault levied against him by more than a dozen other women. He claims Carroll and others are trying to capture attention and sell books by accusing him of wrongdoing.
The dress and shoes Carroll wore at the time of the alleged assault were kept in her closet until last year, when she says she put them on for a photo shoot related to the article she wrote, according to the court filing.
Carroll says Trump assaulted her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman luxury department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996 after she bumped into him while shopping. Her defamation suit accuses Trump of harming her reputation when he publicly denied the rape allegation and called her a liar.
"Unidentified male DNA on the dress could prove that Donald Trump not only knows who I am, but also that he violently assaulted me in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman and then defamed me by lying about it and impugning my character," Carroll said in a statement.
Earlier this month, the Manhattan state judge overseeing the case denied Trump's request to dismiss the lawsuit, rejecting the president's argument that he can't be sued in New York because he's living in Washington.
