The Daily Populous Thursday October 24th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by EditorRedditer

A former model who says she met Donald Trump through the late sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein has accused the former president of groping and sexually touching her in an incident in Trump Tower in 1993, in what she believed was a “twisted game” between the two men.

Stacey Williams, who worked as a professional model in the 1990s, said she first met Trump in 1992 at a Christmas party after being introduced to him by Epstein, who she believed was a good friend of the then New York real estate developer. Williams said Epstein was interested in her and the two casually dated for a period of a few months.

“It became very clear then that he and Donald were really, really good friends and spent a lot of time together,” Williams said.

View image in fullscreen Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in 1992. Photograph: MSNBC

The alleged groping occurred some months later, in the late winter or early spring of 1993, when Epstein suggested during a walk they were on that he and Williams stop by to visit Trump at Trump Tower. Epstein was later convicted on sex offenses and killed himself in prison in 2019.

Moments after they arrived, she alleges, Trump greeted Williams, pulled her toward him and started groping her. She said he put his hands “all over my breasts” as well as her waist and her buttocks. She said she froze because she was “deeply confused” about what was happening. At the same time, she said she believed she saw the two men smiling at each other.

Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for Donald Trump’s campaign, provided a statement denying the allegations, which said in part: “These accusations, made by a former activist for Barack Obama and announced on a Harris campaign call two weeks before the election, are unequivocally false. It’s obvious this fake story was contrived by the Harris campaign.”

View image in fullscreen The postcard that Stacey Williams says Donald Trump sent in 1993. Photograph: Courtesy Stacey Williams

Williams says that Trump sent her agent a postcard via courier later in 1993, an aerial view of Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach residence and resort. She shared it with the Guardian. In his handwriting – using what appears to be his usual black Sharpie – he wrote: “Stacey – Your home away from home. Love Donald”.

View image in fullscreen Stacey Williams in 1996. Photograph: Evan Agostini/Getty Images

Williams, who is 56 and a native of Pennsylvania, has shared parts of her allegation on social media posts in the past, but revealed details about the alleged encounter on a call on Monday organized by a group called Survivors for Kamala, which supports Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. The Zoom call featured actor Ashley Judd and law professor and academic Anita Hill, among others. Survivors for Kamala also took out an ad in the New York Times this week, signed by 200 survivors of sexual and gender violence, which was meant to serve as a reminder that Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse in a court.

After the alleged incident, Williams said that she and Epstein left Trump Tower, and that she began to feel Epstein growing angry at her.

“Jeffrey and I left and he didn’t look at me or speak to me and I felt this seething rage around me, and when we got down to the sidewalk, he looked at me and just berated me, and said: ‘Why did you let him do that?’” she said on the Zoom call.

“He made me feel so disgusting and I remember being so utterly confused,” she said.

She described how the alleged incident seemed to her to be part of a “twisted game”.

“I felt shame and disgust and as we went our separate ways, I felt this sensation of revisiting it, while the hands were all over me. And I had this horrible pit in my stomach that it was somehow orchestrated. I felt like a piece of meat,” she said in an interview with the Guardian.

She and Epstein parted ways soon after. Williams said she never had any knowledge of his pattern of sexual abuse, which would later become known. Epstein is now considered one of the worst and most prolific pedophiles in modern history.

5:32 Former model who met Trump through Jeffrey Epstein alleges former president groped her – video

The allegation of groping and unwanted sexual touching follows a well-documented pattern of behavior by Trump.

About two dozen women have accused the former president, who has been convicted of multiple felonies, of sexual misconduct dating back decades. The allegations have included claims of Trump kissing them without their consent, reaching under their skirts, and, in the case of some beauty pageant contestants, walking in on them in the changing room.

A former model named Amy Dorris shared allegations about Trump similar to what Williams described in an interview with the Guardian in 2020. Trump denied ever having harassed, abused or behaved improperly toward Dorris.

Last year, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing the columnist E Jean Carroll in 1996 and awarded her $5m in a judgment.

Williams’ allegations raise new questions about Trump’s relationship with Epstein.

No evidence has surfaced that Trump was aware of or involved in Epstein’s misconduct.

But Trump and Epstein knew each other for decades and were photographed at the same social events in the 1990s and early 2000s, years before Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to state charges of soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

After Epstein was arrested on sex-trafficking charges in 2019, Trump told journalists in the Oval Office that he “knew him, like everybody in Palm Beach knew him” but that he had a “falling out” with Epstein in the early 2000s.

“I haven’t spoken to him in 15 years,” Trump said. “I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you.”

Asked whether she had considered coming forward in the past, as other women were making allegations against Trump, Williams said she was a person who wanted to avoid negative attention or risk the backlash many other survivors have faced.

“I left the business,” she said. “I disappeared on purpose because I love being anonymous and I love my life of being a private citizen. Then I watched what has happened to women who come out and it is so horrifying and abusive. The thought of doing that, especially as a mother with a child in my house, was just not possible,” she told the Guardian.

“I just chose in my own way – comments on social media to contradict people who said he didn’t do anything,” she said.

Like other survivors, she said, she has processed what happened to her and became more confident about facing an angry backlash, she said.

Williams spoke about the allegations to at least two friends who spoke to the Guardian. One friend, who asked not to be named, said Williams told her about the alleged incident in 2005 or 2006 during a conversation in which Williams mentioned knowing Epstein, and how he had introduced her to Trump. The friend specifically remembers Williams telling her that she had been groped by Trump. Epstein was not a household name at the time, but the friend would later recall the anecdote when the Epstein scandal erupted.

“What I recall is that it was groping … what we would call feeling someone up,” the friend said.

Ally Gutwillinger, another longtime friend, said Williams told her about the alleged incident in 2015. Gutwillinger remembers the timing because Trump had announced that he was running for president.

“I went to her house sometime in that week and I saw a postcard of Mar-a-Lago and I said: ‘What’s this?’ and she said ‘Turn it over,’” Gutwillinger said. “She said something like: ‘He’s vile, he groped me in Trump Tower.’”

_innovator_ on October 23rd, 2024 at 23:29 UTC »

“I’ve known Jeff [Epstein] for 15 years. Terrific guy, He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

- Donald Trump

At best, Trump was good friends with one of America's worst ever pedophiles.

A vote for Trump is a vote for Pedophilia.

Count_Jobula on October 23rd, 2024 at 23:27 UTC »

We can say “they won’t care” all you want, and I agree, but you should still make a big deal out of things like this. Don’t let them forget these things, don’t let them fade into the miasma of disqualifying stuff he’s done. That’s how these things end up going on for years without being stopped.

Gotta make it painful for obvious creeps.

picado on October 23rd, 2024 at 23:02 UTC »

Trump could rape a woman on 5th Ave and not lose votes.

Specifically, in the Bergdorf Goodman at 754 5th Ave.