In This Donald Trump Legal Case, The Cast of Characters Includes Jerry Springer, OJ Simpson, Prince Andrew and Courtney Love (Among Others)

The unsavoury allegations against The Donald just keep on coming. The Guardian tries to unwind one particular case.

A federal judge in New York has ordered counsel for Donald Trump and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to appear in court along with the attorney for a woman referred to only as “Jane Doe” who alleges the Republican presidential nominee raped her when she was 13.

Judge Ronnie Abrams has slated an initial status conference in the civil lawsuit for 16 December in a New York district court.

The order raises the extraordinary prospect, were Trump to win the 8 November battle for the White House, of counsel for a US president-elect being called into federal court in proceedings relating to allegations of rape of an underage girl.

[…]

A Guardian investigation this summer found that the lawsuit appeared to have been coordinated by a former producer on the Jerry Springer TV show who has been associated in the past with a range of disputed claims involving celebrities including OJ Simpson and Kurt Cobain. A publicist acting for “Jane Doe” also attempted to sell a video in which the woman describes her allegations against Trump to media outlets at a $1m price tag.

[…]

The Guardian investigation found that a publicist calling himself “Al Taylor” attempted to sell the videotape of “Jane Doe” relating her allegations for $1m. It linked Taylor through a variety of means including shared email addresses and phone numbers to Norm Lubow, who used to work on Springer’s daytime talk show.

Lubow was connected to a contentious claim, raised in the 1998 documentary movie Kurt and Courtney, that Courtney Love offered a fellow musician $50,000 to murder her husband, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. Love denied the charge.

Wow, huh? And there’s more.