Trump asks judge to stop Carroll’s second libel case

Former President Donald J. Trump told a judge Monday night that he could not defame E. Jean Carroll by denying her decades-old rape allegation because a jury had held him liable only for sexually assaulting her.

His lawyers said in newly filed court documents that Mr. Trump’s denial that he raped Ms. Carroll in a dressing room in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s was truthful. Based on the jury’s verdict last month after a two-week civil trial, they argued that Ms. Carroll’s defamation claim should be dismissed.

“The key question in this case is, and always has been, whether a rape occurred in Bergdorf Goodman’s locker room,” Trump’s attorneys, Alina Habba and Michael T. Madaio, wrote, referring to the department store. The jury “found that they didn’t,” she added.

A civil jury last month found Mr Trump, 76, liable for sexually assaulting Ms Carroll – less serious misconduct than rape – and for defaming her when he called her case “a complete scam” and “a hoax and a lie” mentioned. October.

The jury awarded Ms. Carroll $5 million in damages, and shortly after the verdict, Mr. Trump made similar disparaging remarks on a CNN program and on social media. Ms. Carroll, 79, asked the judge to further punish him in a parallel case that is still open to him.

Mr. Trump’s new lawsuit came in that case, which Ms. Carroll filed in 2019. In it, she accused Mr. Trump of slandering her after she first went public with the attack, in an article in a New York magazine. At the time, Mr. Trump called her accusation “totally false” and said he couldn’t have raped her because she wasn’t his “type.” That 2019 defamation case has stalled on appeal and is still pending.

Ms. Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, said in a statement Monday evening that nothing about the verdict in the recent trial contradicted Ms. Carroll’s longstanding claim.

“The jury unanimously found that Donald Trump forcibly inserted his fingers into E. Jean Carroll’s vagina and then lied about it, slandering her when he said he didn’t know who she was, never met her at Bergdorf Goodman, and that she had. made the whole thing up as part of a ‘scam’ or a ‘hoax’,’ Ms Kaplan said.

She added: “The jury believed E. Jean Carroll when she testified that Trump sexually assaulted her. As a result, the jury concluded that Trump knowingly lied about Ms. Carroll while claiming the contrary.”

The recent lawsuit stemmed from a lawsuit Ms. Carroll brought against Mr. Trump last November under a new state law in New York that gives adult victims of sexual abuse a year to sue people who say they have abused for battery even if the statute of limitations had long expired.

The jury awarded Ms. Carroll $2 million in damages for the sexual assault and $3 million for defamation on May 9. Mr Trump is appealing the ruling.

Mr. Trump, who is trying to regain the presidency, continued to verbally attack Ms. Carroll. On May 10, he appeared on CNN and, in response to a moderator’s questions, said he had never met Ms. Carroll, derided her account as “fake” and said the process was “a rigged deal.”

Ms. Carroll’s lawyers then filed court documents asking a judge to allow them to dismiss the separate and prior defamation lawsuit that Ms. Carroll filed against Mr. Trump — sometimes referred to in court documents as Carroll I.

Both Carroll I and the more recent charge that went to trial, known as Carroll II, have been before the same judge, Lewis A. Kaplan of the Federal District Court.

Ms. Carroll’s lawyers said they wanted to include in the Carroll I lawsuit the fact of the jury’s verdict in Carroll II, as well as Mr. Trump’s statements on CNN.

“Trump’s post-verdict defamatory statements demonstrate the depth of his malice toward Carroll, as it is hard to imagine defamatory behavior could be more motivated by hatred, ill-will or spite,” Ms. Carroll’s attorneys wrote.

They said Mr Trump’s conduct supported “very substantial” damages in the still outstanding Carroll I case “to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation and to deter others from doing the same.” doing.”

The Carroll I lawsuit was mired in appeal after Mr Trump argued he could not be charged because he made his statements in his official capacity as president. He repeated the statements last year when he was no longer president, prompting Carroll II.