A former model has alleged she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump, then a real estate mogul, two decades ago in his VIP box on the bleachers of the US Open in New York.
“He just stuck his tongue down my throat and I pushed him,” Amy Dorris, the former model, told The Guardian in an interview.
“And that’s when his grip got stronger and his hands were very groping and all over my butt, my breasts, my back, everything,” the British newspaper quoted her as saying.
“I was in his grip and couldn’t get out of it,” he added.
“I don’t know what you call it when you’re sticking your tongue down someone’s throat. But I pushed it with my teeth. She was pushing it. And I think I could have hurt his tongue. “
Trump was 51 at the time and married to his second wife, Marla Maples. Dorris was 24 years old.
Lawyers for President Trump have denied the incident took place and have raised several questions about his account, the news publication said. There would have been witnesses in such a public place as the US Open, they said and asked why she, who was there with her then boyfriend, continued to visit and meet with Trump after the alleged incident and even sat with him at the memorial. service for Gianni Versace.
Dorris did not report the incident, which took place on September 5, 1997, to the police, but did tell a friend and her mother. She also talked about it with other people and with a therapist in the intervening years. The Guardian said it has corroborated her account with people she had trusted at the time.
The former model, who is the mother of twin daughters and lives in Florida, has said she did consider talking about the assault in 2016, when Trump was the Republican presidential nominee. But she changed her mind because she feared she would end up harming her family.
“Now I feel like my daughters are about to turn 13 and I want them to know that you don’t let anyone do anything to you that you don’t want to,” he said. “And I prefer to be a role model. I want them to see that I was not silent, that I was confronted with someone who did something that was unacceptable. “
Dorris joins a long list of women who have accused Trump over the years of imposing, groping or sexually assaulting them. While Trump and his attorneys have vigorously dismissed those accusations, he has bragged about assaulting women and forcing himself to do so, as he did in the infamous Access Hollywood tapes that nearly ended his campaign in October 2016.
E Jean Carroll, a columnist who has alleged Trump raped her at a Manhattan department store decades ago, filed a defamation lawsuit against the president in 2019 for accusing her of “totally lying” while rejecting his claims. The president is being defended by lawyers from the Justice Department in a highly unusual move, which began earlier this month.
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