A jury of six men and three women was chosen Tuesday to hear a former advice columnist’s lawsuit accusing former President Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s. Opening statements were expected later in the day.

The federal civil suit is designed to test Trump’s Teflon Don reputation for shrugging off serious legal troubles and to repeat the stories of the kind of sexual misconduct that rocked his 2016 presidential campaign while he seeks his office again. He denies the claim made by E. Jean Carroll and everyone else, saying they were false hoods devised to harm him.

The judges were selected after questioning not only their background, but also their habits of watching news and more.

They were asked if they had made political donations, supported right-wing and left-wing groups, used Trump’s social media platform, read Carroll’s former Elle column, and even if they had seen Trump’s former reality show The Apprentice. whether any of these and other things would make it difficult for them to be honest.

The jurors’ names will be kept secret and they will be escorted to and from the courthouse to avoid harassment or invasion of privacy, said U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.

The group ranges in age from 26 to 66 and includes a janitor, a physiotherapist and people who work in security,

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collections, a library, a high school and other institutions. One of them said she follows the news by watching everything; another said he didn’t follow it at all.

The trial will take place in a federal civil court, meaning that regardless of the outcome, Trump will not risk going to jail. He also does not have to appear in court and his lawyers have indicated that he will most likely not testify.

What you need to know about the Trump rape case in New York federal court

The trial comes a month after he pleaded not guilty in an unrelated criminal case involving payments to bury bills of alleged extramarital sex.

Carroll is expected to testify about a chance meeting with Trump in late 1995 or early 1996 that she says turned violent. The trial will also cover Carroll’s defamation claim against Trump for disparaging comments he made about her in response to the rape allegations. She demands unspecified damages and retraction.

She says that after she ran into the future president at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan, he invited her to shop with him for a gift of women’s lingerie before they teased each other about trying on a piece of clothing. Carroll says they ended up alone in a store locker room together, where Trump pushed her against a wall and raped her

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before she fought him off and fled.

Since Carroll first made her accusations in a 2019 memoir, Trump has vehemently denied that a rape ever took place or that he even knew Carroll.

Trump has labeled Carroll a lunatic and mentally ill. He claimed she fabricated the rape claim to boost sales of her book.

She’s not my type, he’s said repeatedly, though he also falsely identified her in a photo as his ex-wife Marla Maples during a sworn interrogation in October.

Rape lawsuit puts Trump and women back in the spotlight

Carroll didn’t stop to talk to reporters when she arrived at the courthouse Tuesday morning.

Jurors are also expected to hear from two other women who say they were sexually assaulted by Trump.

Jessica Leeds will testify that Trump tried to put his hand up her skirt on a 1979 flight on which the two were assigned side-by-side seats. Natasha Stoynoff, a former People magazine writer, will testify that Trump pressed her against a wall and forcibly kissed her at his Florida mansion when she went there in 2005 to interview Trump and his then-pregnant wife, Melania Trump.

Judges will also see the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood video in which Trump is heard making misogynistic remarks about women, including a claim that celebrities can grab women, even sexually, without asking.

Carroll’s allegations would normally be too old to bring to trial. But in November, New York state passed a law allowing for lawsuits over decades-old sexual abuse claims.

Kaplan, who will preside over the trial, rejected a request from Trump’s attorneys to tell jurors that the ex-president wanted to spare the city the disruption of his presence.

Trump may still decide to attend and testify at the trial. If he doesn’t, the jury may be shown clips of his statement, which was videotaped.

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On Monday, Kaplan instructed lawyers on both sides not to say anything in front of prospective jurors on Tuesday about who pays legal fees.

Earlier this month, the judge allowed Trump’s lawyers to question Carroll for another hour after it became known that her lawyers had received funding from American Future Republic, an organization funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. In earlier questioning, Carroll said the lawyers relied solely on contingency costs.

The Associated Press generally does not name people who claim to have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll, Leeds and Stoynoff have done.