A judge in Manhattan on Tuesday granted E. Jean Carroll’s request to review a defamation lawsuit she filed against former President Donald J. Trump stemming from derogatory comments he made about her in 2019 to find similar remarks he made recently on CNN.
Federal District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s order overcame Mr. Trump’s objections. He had asked the judge to drop the defamation lawsuit against Ms Carroll as, he said, he could not have defamed her in 2019 when he denied her accusation of a decades-old rape. That’s because, Mr. Trump said, a jury in a separate case recently found him liable only for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll, and not for raping her, as she has long maintained.
Mr Trump’s CNN tirade against Ms Carroll, 79, followed a civil jury verdict last month finding Mr Trump, 76, liable in the separate sexual assault case of Ms Carroll in the mid-1970s Ninety. It also found that he slandered her last year when he went to his Truth Social website and called her case a “complete scam” and “a hoax and a lie.” The jury awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages after a two-week trial.
Mr. Trump, in response to questions from the CNN moderator, called Ms. Carroll a “crazy job”, said her allegation of a decades-old attack was “phony” and a “fabricated story” and that her civil suit was ” a rigged deal.”
Judge allows new comments from Trump in Carroll defamation case
A judge in Manhattan on Tuesday granted E. Jean Carroll’s request to review a defamation lawsuit she filed against former President Donald J. Trump stemming from derogatory comments he made about her in 2019 to find similar remarks he made recently on CNN.
Federal District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s order overcame Mr. Trump’s objections. He had asked the judge to drop the defamation lawsuit against Ms Carroll as, he said, he could not have defamed her in 2019 when he denied her accusation of a decades-old rape. That’s because, Mr. Trump said, a jury in a separate case recently found him liable only for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll, and not for raping her, as she has long maintained.
Mr Trump’s CNN tirade against Ms Carroll, 79, followed a civil jury verdict last month finding Mr Trump, 76, liable in the separate sexual assault case of Ms Carroll in the mid-1970s Ninety. It also found that he slandered her last year when he went to his Truth Social website and called her case a “complete scam” and “a hoax and a lie.” The jury awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages after a two-week trial.
Mr. Trump, in response to questions from the CNN moderator, called Ms. Carroll a “crazy job”, said her allegation of a decades-old attack was “phony” and a “fabricated story” and that her civil suit was ” a rigged deal.”
Ms Carroll’s revised lawsuit is seeking at least $10 million in damages for Mr Trump’s 2019 statements after Ms Carroll first made her rape allegation public. At the time, he called her claim “totally false” and said he couldn’t have raped her because she wasn’t his “type”.
The revised suit, citing Mr Trump’s CNN remarks, says his post-verdict conduct also “supports very substantial damages” in her favor, “to deter him from engaging in further defamation.”
Ms. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, said Tuesday, “We look forward to moving forward quickly with E. Jean Carroll’s remaining claims.”
Mr Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, said: “We argue that she should not be allowed to retroactively change her legal theory, at the 11th hour, to avoid the consequences of an adverse finding against her .”