US2 min(s) read
Published 11:40 17 Sep 2020 GMT
A former model has accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault during an encounter at the 1997 US Open.
The allegations have been made by former model Amy Dorris, who claims the POTUS assaulted her outside the bathroom in his VIP box at the tennis tournament in New York on 5 September 1997. She was 24 at the time.
Amy Dorris opens up about her alleged encounter with Donald Trump in the video below:
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Speaking exclusively to The Guardian's Lucy Osborne, Dorris recalled her alleged encounter with Trump, saying:
"He just shoved his tongue down my throat and I was pushing him off. And then that’s when his grip became tighter and his hands were very gropey and all over my butt, my breasts, my back, everything.
"I was in his grip, and I couldn’t get out of it," she said.
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"I don’t know what you call that when you’re sticking your tongue just down someone’s throat. But I pushed it out with my teeth. I was pushing it," Dorris added. "And I think I might have hurt his tongue."
Via his lawyers, President Trump has denied "in the strongest possible terms" ever harassing, abused, or behaved inappropriately toward Dorris.
At the time of the alleged incident, Trump was 51 and married to his second wife, Marla Maples.
Now 48 years old and a mother to twin daughters, Dorris claims that she considered speaking out about the alleged incident in 2016 - when several other women made similar accusations against the then-Republican candidate - but decided against it in order to protect her family.
Dorris said: "Now I feel like my girls are about to turn 13 years old and I want them to know that you don’t let anybody do anything to you that you don’t want.
"And I’d rather be a role model. I want them to see that I didn’t stay quiet, that I stood up to somebody who did something that was unacceptable."
Head of Investigations at The Guardian Paul Lewis has since tweeted another story by journalist Lucy Osbourne, in which she states "more than a dozen of that group having accused him of sexual assault".
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Lewis wrote alongside his tweet: "Amy Dorris is of course not the first woman to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct. Remarkable to read how consistent the allegations - all denied by the president - have been over the years."
The Guardian states that Dorris - who now lives in the state of Florida - provided the publication with "evidence" to support her alleged encounters with Trump, including her ticket to the US Open and six photographs taken with The Apprentice star over several days in New York.
Dorris' account was corroborated by several other people she confided in, according to The Guardian. These individuals include a friend in New York and Dorris' mother, both of whom she called in the immediate aftermath of the alleged incident.
She said she had spent several days with Trump in September 1997 after visiting New York for a long weekend with her then-boyfriend, Jason Binn.
Binn was a friend of Donald Trump, The Guardian reports. On September 5, Dorris said Binn took her to meet Trump at his Trump Tower office, before they went to the US Open.
“He came on very strong right away,” she said of Donald Trump. “It seemed typical of a certain guy, people who just feel like they’re entitled to do what they want … even though I was there with my boyfriend.”
Dorris said the incident occurred after she visited the bathroom to fix an issue with her contact lenses. When she came out, Dorris alleges, Trump was waiting.
“Initially I thought that he was waiting to go to the bathroom, but that wasn’t the case, unfortunately,” she explained. Dorris recalls Trump forcing himself on her after she had told him “No, get away.”
“It doesn’t matter who you are,” she said. “Any time anyone says no, no means no. And that just didn’t work out for me. It wasn’t enough.”
