Former U.S. President Donald Trump is not going to testify at a civil trial to problem claims made by author E. Jean Carroll that he raped her within the Nineties and later defamed her, after letting a Sunday deadline cross with out asking the courtroom to seem.

Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina instructed the decide on Thursday that Trump had waived his proper to testify within the trial in Manhattan federal courtroom and opted to not current a protection within the case, playing that jurors will discover that Carroll had did not make a persuasive case.

In response to a Reuters request for remark, Tacopina stated in a press release what Trump’s authorized crew had already instructed the courtroom on Thursday, that the previous president wouldn’t testify within the case.

After the jury left for the day on Thursday, U.S. District Decide Lewis Kaplan requested Tacopina to tell Trump that he had till Sunday at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) to inform the courtroom whether or not he meant to testify.

Kaplan has scheduled closing arguments from the 2 sides for Monday. Carroll, 79, filed her lawsuit final yr in opposition to Trump, 76, claiming he raped her in a dressing room on the Bergdorf Goodman division retailer in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996, after which defamed her by denying it occurred. The previous Elle journal recommendation columnist is searching for unspecified financial damages.

Trump, who served as president from 2017 to 2021 and is the present frontrunner for the Republican U.S. presidential nomination in 2024, has stated Carroll made up the allegation to drive gross sales of her 2019 memoir.

In a video deposition performed for the jury on Wednesday, Trump denied raping Carroll.

“It is probably the most ridiculous, disgusting story,” Trump stated within the video, hunched over a convention desk as Carroll’s attorneys offered paperwork to him. “It is simply made up.”