Former Model Accuses Trump of Sexually Assaulting Her at 1997 US Open

Screenshot via YouTube.

Amy Dorris, a former model, is accusing President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her at the 1997 US Open tennis tournament in New York City, which she attended with her boyfriend at the time, magazine publisher Jason Binn. Trump denies the allegations.

Dorris, who is now 48 and lives in Florida, gave an interview to The Guardian about the incident and provided evidence to back up her allegations, including her ticket to the US Open and six photos showing her with Trump during the several days she spent in New York.

She was 24 at the time, said that Binn called Trump his “best friend.” They were invited to join Trump in his private VIP box at the tournament and met him at his office in Trump Tower in Manhattan before heading over to the tournament held in Queens.

“He came on very strong right away,” she described meeting 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.” In 1997, Trump was 51 years old and married to his second wife, Marla Maples.

According to Dorris, the incident occurred when she used the bathroom in the VIP box to fix her contact lenses. Photos from that day show a small partition wall that blocked the entrance to the bathroom from the view of most of the rest of the box. She said Trump was waiting for her outside the bathroom and thought at first that he was waiting to use it, “but that wasn’t the case, unfortunately.”

Dorris described a short conversation with Trump, recalling “nervously laughing” and telling him, “No, get away,” but he “forced himself” on her:

“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, adding: “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. And I think I might have hurt his tongue.”

…She alleged she told Trump “no, please stop” but “he didn’t care”. “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.”

As additional corroboration, Dorris connected Guardian reporters with her mother and a friend in New York, who both confirmed she called them right after the alleged incident, plus a former therapist and other friends with whom she shared her story in the years since.

Trump’s attorneys responded to deny “in the strongest possible terms having ever harassed, abused or behaved improperly toward Dorris.”

Binn did not respond to The Guardian’s request for comment, but Trump’s attorneys said that he had told them he had “no recollection of Dorris telling him that anything inappropriate had happened with Trump or that she felt uncomfortable around him.”

Dorris said that she could not recall if she told Binn the full details of what allegedly happened, but did say that she told him Trump was “all over” her, and that Trump continued to pursue her during that New York visit, despite her “firm rejection” of his advances and wearing more “conservative” clothing. Dorris says Trump asked her, “Could you see yourself living here?”

Trump’s attorneys point to Dorris’ continued presence at events with Trump as evidence she wasn’t threatened by him, and called the timing of her allegations so close to the coming November elections “politically motivated.”

“I was there from Florida, and I was with Jason,” was Dorris’ explanation for continuing to attend events with Trump. “I had no money, nowhere to go. We were going from event to event, and it was overwhelming,” adding that it was something “traumatic” that she was not able to process until years later.

As to why she waited until now, Dorris said she considered speaking out in 2016 when multiple other women made similar allegations against Trump as he was running for president, but she was afraid that coming forward could be harmful to her family.

She has twin daughters who are about to turn 13 years old, and told The Guardian, “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.”

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