Woman Who Accuses Trump of Raping Her When She Was 13 Giles Suit Again in Dec

Fifteen women have now gone on tape to say that Donald Trump sexually assaulted them. Out of all of their stories, one is the most explosive and bizarre — a adult female who says Trump violently raped her at an orgy when she was just 13 years old. But the horrific details of her allegation have gotten the least attention.

It seemed like that was all going to alter Wednesday, when the adult female, who has gone by the pseudonyms "Katie Johnson" and "Jane Doe," was set to appear at a press conference at the police offices of Lisa Blossom, a high-profile civil rights attorney and Goggle box commentator. Only the woman didn't come to the press conference. Bloom told a room full of waiting reporters that Johnson was afraid to evidence her confront subsequently receiving multiple death threats, and that they would accept to reschedule.

Then on Friday, Bloom announced that Johnson had dropped her lawsuit:

Every woman makes her own own selection about what is all-time for her. Life's a journey. Most of u.s.a. get stronger every bit we get older. I respect women.

— Lisa Bloom (@LisaBloom) Nov v, 2016

It's not uncommon for victims of sexual assail to want to preserve their anonymity, and dropping a lawsuit doesn't mean admitting that the instance had no merit. Jill Harth, who sued Trump for sexual assault in 1997, still stands by her claims fifty-fifty though she dropped the lawsuit. And it would indeed have been an intense couple of days for Johnson — Bloom said that her firm's website was hacked, that Anonymous had claimed responsibility, and that death threats and a bomb threat came in afterwards.

It was the finish of an incredibly strange case that featured an anonymous plaintiff who had refused almost all requests for interviews, 2 anonymous corroborating witnesses whom no one in the press had spoken to, and a couple of seriously shady characters — with an anti-Trump agenda and a penchant for drama — who had aggressively shopped the story around to media outlets for over a year.

Those shady characters — a quondam reality Tv set producer who calls himself "Al Taylor" and a "Never Trump" conservative activist named Steve Baer — had been by and large unsuccessful in getting the media to bite. There are a few very good reasons for that, which the Huffington Mail service'south Ryan Grim succinctly summed up: Taylor and Baer take been actually sketchy nearly the whole thing, and since the accuser is anonymous, journalists can't do anything to verify her claims. The only journalist who has actually interviewed Johnson, Emily Shugerman at Revelist, came away confused and fifty-fifty doubting whether Johnson really exists.

Since a tape of Trump bragging nearly sexual assail came out in early October, a dozen named women accept come forward with credible, similar-sounding allegations of Trump forcibly kissing or groping them in exactly the way he described on that record. Johnson's instance was an outlier, with far more salacious allegations from a source that seems far less credible.

But Trump was all the same scheduled to answer those allegations in front end of a judge on December 16. Now that'southward not going to happen. And we may never larn anything more than about the matter, unless and until Johnson decides to interruption her silence.

The lawsuit made horrifying allegations confronting both Trump and celebrity pedophile Jeffrey Epstein

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Johnson claimed that Trump violently raped her when she was 13 at a 1994 orgy hosted by Jeffrey Epstein — the billionaire who was convicted in 2008 of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution and has been accused of having sex with more than xxx underage girls.

Johnson's lawsuit mentioned Trump's friendship with Epstein, and a annotate Trump fabricated in 2002 about their respective tastes in women: "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes cute women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

The lawsuit declared a number of charges against both Trump and Epstein, including rape, sexual corruption, assault and battery, and false imprisonment. Johnson said that when she was xiii, Epstein lured her to parties at his apartment by promising "money and a modeling career."

Johnson said Trump had sexual contact with her at four of those parties, including tying her to a bed and violently raping her in a "savage sexual attack." The lawsuit said Johnson "loudly pleaded" with Trump to stop, but that he responded by "violently striking Plaintiff in the face up with his open hand and screaming that he would do whatever he wanted."

Later on that, Trump allegedly threatened to impairment or kill Johnson and her family if she ever told anyone. Johnson said Trump told her he could brand them "disappear" like Maria — a 12-twelvemonth-one-time girl Johnson says Trump likewise forced her to accept sexual contact with, and whom Johnson hadn't seen since that encounter.

Johnson also defendant Epstein of raping her "anally and vaginally despite her loud pleas to stop," and that he "attempted to strike Plaintiff about the caput with his airtight fists while he angrily screamed that he, Defendant Epstein, rather than Defendant Trump, should take been the one who took Plaintiff'southward virginity."

The courtroom filings also included a statement from "Tiffany Doe," another anonymous woman, who said that she witnessed the rapes and procured the young girls for the parties, and "Joan Doe," a classmate of the victim who said she was told nigh the rapes during the following school year. Tiffany Doe said that Epstein and Trump knew that Johnson was 13.

An earlier lawsuit Johnson filed against Trump was somewhat fishy

The lawsuit Johnson filed in New York was actually her second attempt to sue Trump and Epstein. The first was in California in April of this twelvemonth, a merits Johnson filed herself that got thrown out on technical grounds — she'd filed a ceremonious rights adapt, but failed to actually state an applicable civil rights merits.

There were a couple of odd things about that lawsuit. The address listed on court documents as Johnson'southward was actually a foreclosed, abandoned home, and the phone number was disconnected. Mayhap Johnson was but using a fake accost because she was homeless; she was, later on all, also described equally being indigent. But it's fishy.

The lawsuit also described details that were and then lurid — "almost cinematic in their depravity," every bit Jezebel's Anna Merlan put it — that they're almost difficult to believe. Some of those details were omitted from the 2nd lawsuit, the New York Daily News reported:

Gone from the new lawsuit is an allegation that Trump threw money at the plaintiff for an ballgame when she expressed fright most getting pregnant later on beingness raped. Gone, as well, is the allegation that Trump called co-defendant and defendant pedophile and sex party host Jeffrey Epstein a "Jew bastard," and her request for $100 million in amercement.

Just the details that remain in the 2nd lawsuit — filed with the assistance of New Jersey patent chaser Thomas Meagher, who says he volunteered to take the case later reading well-nigh it — are nonetheless shocking.

"The allegations are not only categorically false, but disgusting at the highest level and clearly framed to solicit media attention or, possibly, are only politically motivated," Trump told RadarOnline in April, subsequently the first lawsuit was filed. "There is admittedly no merit to these allegations. Period."

Johnson'southward case has been promoted to the media in truly baroque, suspicious ways

This spring, a homo called "Al Taylor" sent a video of a woman with a blurred face up and blonde wig (allegedly Johnson) recounting the allegations against Trump to news outlets, proverb he wanted $1 million for it. Taylor, the Guardian reported, was actually Norm Lubow, a erstwhile producer on the Jerry Springer show who has a history of using fake names and disguises to brand juicy, imitation claims most celebrities.

The lawsuit was promoted to the media by an anti-Trump, anti-ballgame activist named Steve Baer, a conservative activist and donor with a very influential electronic mail list that he uses to relentlessly spam reporters and bourgeois power players. Baer, too, has a history of passing around "whoa if true" rumors: Last twelvemonth, he was a cardinal figure in spreading the notion that Us Rep. Kevin McCarthy was having an extramarital affair with a adult female in Congress when McCarthy was a candidate to become speaker of the House.

Baer told Emily Shugerman at Revelist that Taylor met Johnson at a political party and asked her if she had whatever skillful celebrity gossip. When she talked almost her attack, Taylor apparently didn't want to touch the story at first, but then circled back with Johnson most it once Trump's campaign started picking up steam.

To hear journalists who interacted with them tell information technology, Baer and Taylor come off equally obnoxiously persistent in pushing the story, and infuriatingly evasive when asked for interviews with Johnson. Jezebel'southward Anna Merlan published a long account of their bizarre antics.

Taylor in particular comes across as volatile and a little scary; Merlan reported that Taylor told her to "suck my dick" when she confronted him virtually his identity, and that he made harassing phone calls to other journalists. He also appears to have sent at to the lowest degree a few text messages and emails while posing as Katie Johnson — or at least messages that Meagher, Johnson's attorney, denies that Johnson sent.

The Daily Beast'south Brandy Zadrozny also has a colorful story most the time Baer and Johnson had an ballsy public meltdown at each other — over Baer'south email list, cc'ing journalists all the manner.

In brusque, these guys are a trainwreck. But they've basically been the public face of Katie Johnson for the concluding yr.

Again, Revelist's Emily Shugerman is the simply journalist who has managed to interview Johnson. She says Meagher offered her the chance to interview Johnson over FaceTime from his office in Princeton, New Jersey. Only Johnson apparently decided she didn't want to do information technology afterward all, and the interview was canceled.

Iii days after, close to midnight, Shugerman finally talked to Johnson over the telephone in a conference call with Meagher. At that place were some odd things about that call, Shugerman writes:

Johnson's voice sounded muffled and far abroad when she answered — she said she was speaking softly considering she didn't want anyone to overhear her. Several times she paused mid-sentence, and I could hear her moving something.

"She has dogs," Meagher explained.

Shugerman says Johnson was "vague" in her descriptions of Epstein'due south parties and how many people were there, and wouldn't go into details virtually what she was asked to practice. Some of the details she did give were consequent with descriptions of Epstein and his house Vicky Ward listed in a 2003 Vanity Fair profile — which could either lend credence to Johnson's story, or advise that "Johnson" simply read the Vanity Fair story as research.

Most troublingly, a detective who worked with Epstein'due south victims called into question a key part of Johnson's story:

Hearing her answers that nighttime, I had to remind myself that PTSD from sexual trauma is known to damage victims' memories — and that the parties she recalled allegedly happened more than than two decades ago. Merely Mike Fisten, a retired Miami-Dade detective who conducted research for several of Epstein'south victims, denied such parties ever fifty-fifty took place.

"Jeffery never had parties like described in their complaint," Fisten told me. "Jeffery had sex parties, for sure, with two or three girls … but never with other guys."

There were men in attendance at Epstein'southward more than large, lavish affairs, Fisten said, only nothing illicit e'er happened at such events.

Meagher, Shugerman wrote, is eager to put the focus back on the declared rape of a 13-year-old instead of focusing on the antics of Taylor and Baer. Annihilation else, Meagher told Shugerman, is "allowing the sins of others to exist visited upon my customer."

But until Johnson actually does intermission her silence in a bigger way, there are still a lot of questions yet to be answered.

"I don't know if the Katie Johnson I spoke to is the same girl who Trump allegedly raped in 1994, or if that girl even exists," Shugerman concluded in her piece. "All I know is the reason why the woman I spoke to on July 11 chose to speak to me at all. 'I but desire to get justice,' she told me. 'I hateful, these things happen to girls everywhere … I just desire people to know.'"

Sexual assault has go an unexpected flashpoint in the 2016 election

Photograph by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The leaked record that featured Trump bragging about committing sexual attack, and the dozen women who came forrard to allege that Trump actually did this, was a massive bombshell in the presidential campaign. Trump was already well-known for his many sexist insults and degrading misogynistic remarks, which Hillary Clinton was e'er quick to remind voters of on the entrada trail.

Merely Trump's ain words nearly groping women, and the declared deeds they corresponded to, were on some other level. While none of the allegations confronting Trump have been proven in court, near of them have been reported by credible journalistic outlets, including interviews with corroborating witnesses who say they heard the accusers' stories firsthand after they happened.

And Clinton hasn't shied abroad from using these stories as campaign forage. Michelle Obama gave a powerful speech condemning Trump's alleged deportment, and the Clinton campaign just released a brutal assail ad claiming that Trump actually did what he said he did on the infamous "grab 'em by the pussy" tape.

But the Clinton campaign hasn't touched Johnson'southward allegation, and with good reason. It's truthful that the allegation is explosive, and could make voters see Trump's many disturbing comments well-nigh young girls over the years in a new low-cal. But it's also very dubious and uncertain, and at that place's no real need to promote a case like that when a dozen women have come forward with much more credible stories, using their ain names and making themselves available to reporters for scrutiny.

Trump has denied all of the charges confronting him. Simply he's besides tried to attack Hillary Clinton by parading effectually several women who have accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct, and arguing that there's a double standard in attacking Trump on those grounds without also attacking Bill.

Some of the allegations against Bill Clinton are more than credible than others. Just by making those allegations an issue at all, Trump makes himself more vulnerable to attacks based on allegations about his ain beliefs — fifty-fifty sketchier claims like Johnson'south.

Libby Nelson contributed reporting to this piece.

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Correction seven/11/19: Corrected to reflect the original publication engagement of the Vanity Fair commodity on Epstein.

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Source: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/3/13501364/trump-rape-13-year-old-lawsuit-katie-johnson-allegation