Sexual assault allegations against Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump have come up again, ahead of a series of primaries in the United States called Super Tuesday on March 1. A woman who had filed a lawsuit against Trump in 1997, accused him of attempting to rape her after he touched her inappropriately and introduced her to his colleagues as a girlfriend. The Guardian reported that she dropped the $125-million lawsuit a month after filing it, and that the incident left her “emotionally devastated and distraught”. Trump settled the lawsuit for a six-figure sum, the report said.

The woman had been approached by reporters in light of Trump's presidential campaign. When asked if she stands by her accusation, she said yes. The woman, however, appears to support him as candidate.

According to the woman’s testimony, Trump first touched her inappropriately at a dinner meeting in 1992, and in another encounter, forced her into a bedroom in Palm Beach, Florida, and performed an act that constitutes attempted rape by American law. When she tried to leave, he assaulted her again. The woman cited other instances including several phone calls Trump made demanding sex from her. She also said Trump told her then boyfriend that “there’s going to be a problem” because “I’m very attracted to your girlfriend”.

She added that the harassment continued after she became a partner in a beauty pageant venture called American Dream Festival, led by her estranged husband. The venture was, according to her, used by Trump and his colleagues as a “vehicle for seeking sex from women”.

On Wednesday, Trump’s counsel Michael Cohen told Mail Online that there was no truth to the allegations.