A jury in New York City is set to begin deliberations  in a civil trial over advice columnist E. Jean Carroll’s claims Donald Trump raped her in a luxury Manhattan department store in 1996.

US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan will on Tuesday read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury for about an hour before jurors begin discussing the civil claims of battery and defamation.

If they believe Ms Carroll, jurors can award compensatory and punitive damages. Mr Trump, who did not attend the trial, has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or knew her.

Mr Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, told the jury in closing arguments on Monday that Carroll’s story is too far fetched to be believed. He said she made it up to fuel sales of a 2019 memoir where she first publicly revealed her claims and to disparage Mr Trump for political reasons.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Mr Trump’s October deposition and his notorious comments on a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which he said celebrities can grab women between the legs without asking.

She urged jurors to believe her client.

“He didn’t even bother to show up here in person,” Judge Kaplan said, referring to Mr Trump’s absence from court during the two weeks of trial. She said much of what he said in his deposition and in public statements “actually supports our side of the case”.

“In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself,” she said.

“He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.”

Ms Carroll, 79, testified that she had a chance encounter with Mr Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Mr Trump Tower. She said it was a lighthearted interaction in which they teased each other about trying on a piece of lingerie before Mr Trump became violent inside a dressing room.

Mr Tacopina told jurors there was no reason to call Mr Trump as a witness when Carroll can’t even recall when her encounter with Mr Trump happened.

He told the jury Ms Carroll made up her claims after hearing about a 2012 Law & Order episode in which a woman is raped in the dressing room of the lingerie section of a Bergdorf Goodman store.

“They modeled their secret scheme on an episode of one of the most popular shows on television,” he said of Ms Carroll.

Two of Ms Carroll’s friends testified that she told them about the encounter with Mr Trump shortly after it happened, many years before the episode aired.