A woman testified Tuesday that Donald Trump assaulted her with what appeared to be 40 trillion hands “on an airline flight in the late 1970s, years before writer E. Jean Carroll says Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store.

Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyer said the former president has decided not to test, answering the biggest open question about the closely watched case. Trump has taken an affidavit and excerpts could be played to the jury.

Jessica Leeds, 81, of Asheville,

NC,

told jurors at a civil trial following Carroll’s trial that Trump grabbed her breast and ran his hand down her skirt as they sat next to each other in first class on a flight to New York. After a few seconds, she said, she wrenched herself away from Trump, told him I didn’t need this, and stormed to the back of the plane.

There was no conversation. It came out of the blue. It was like a fight,” Leeds testified. He tried to kiss me, tried to pull me in. He grabbed my breasts. It was like he had 40 trillion hands. It was like a fight between the two of us.

Carroll’s lawyers called Leeds to the witness stand in an attempt to demonstrate that Trump has a history of assaulting women and that Carroll’s claims were part of a pattern and not a one-off incident. Another woman is expected to testify at trial that she, too, was a victim of Trump.

Trump has repeatedly denied the women’s claims. He claims the allegations are politically motivated attempts to smear his reputation as he races to return to the White House. He has that saying Carroll number to sell books and that she’s not his type.

“Donald Trump raped me,” the writer tells the jury in a trial

Trump used similar language in denying Leeds’ allegations, previously made, telling supporters at a rally in 2016, “Believe me, she wouldn’t be my first choice.”

Leeds first went public with her account of the alleged plane strike in the final weeks of Trump’s 2016 campaign, telling jurors she decided to do so because she was furious at Trump’s claim during a debate that he never touched women against their will.

Carroll, a former magazine advice columnist, made her accusations against Trump public in 2019 when she published a memoir. She testified for three days until Monday that Trump raped her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store.

Lisa Birnbach, an old friend of Carroll’s, testified that an emotional and hyperventilating Carroll called her minutes after her meeting with Trump to share what had happened. She said she told Carroll that Carroll had been raped and urged her to go to the police, but Carroll refused, leading them to a fight before Birnbach agreed never to talk about it again.

Leeds said she was in her late 30s, working in sales and sitting on a bus on a Braniff Airways flight from Dallas or Atlanta to New York’s LaGuardia Airport, probably in 1979, when a flight attendant invited her to sit on the the only empty seat on the aisle. the first-class cabin, next to Trump.

Trump introduced himself, Leeds said, but she didn’t know who he was at the time. While working as a real estate developer, Trump had not yet reached the heights of his fame and was still a few years away from opening Trump Tower in Manhattan.

During a rape trial, Trump’s attorney wonders why E. Jean Carroll didn’t scream

Leeds said she sat with Trump for a few hours and ate a nice, first-class meal, but their conversation was otherwise forgettable. Then, she said, Trump suddenly decided to kiss and touch me.”

Leeds said she fought back when Trump appeared to be getting more aggressive, putting his weight on her, crowding her chair and pushing her into it. No passengers intervened and no employees of the now-defunct airline came to her aid, she said.

Only when he started to put his hand under my skirt did I gain strength. I managed to wriggle out of my seat and storm back to my seat on the bus. I don’t think a word or a sound was made by either of us, Leeds recalled. She said the meeting seemed like an eternity, but it probably only lasted a few seconds.”

After landing in New York, Leeds said she stayed on the plane until everyone else left to avoid running into Trump again. She said she kept the incident to herself and considered it one of the hardships of travelling.”

She didn’t report it to the airline, the police or her boss because, she said, it was a time when women didn’t complain about things in the workplace.

A few years later, Leeds said, she saw Trump at a gala in Manhattan with his first wife, Ivana, who was pregnant. But Leeds said nothing. Instead, she told the jurors that it was Trump who struck out. She remembered him using a rude word to identify her as the woman from the plane.’

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