Author E. Jean Carroll leaves a Manhattan courthouse after a jury found former President Donald Trump sexually abused her at a Manhattan department store in New York City in the 1990s, May 9, 2023.
Spencer Pratt | Getty Images
A federal judge on Tuesday granted author E. Jean Carroll’s request to amend her original defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump to include comments he made about her during a CNN town hall last month.
The order by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan is a blow to Trump, who had asked the court to dismiss Carroll’s efforts to update the lawsuit, which now seeks at least $10 million in damages.
The judge’s decision was made public shortly after Trump pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges at his historic arraignment in Miami.
“We look forward to expeditiously advancing E. Jean Carroll’s remaining claims,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, told CNBC after the latest order was issued Tuesday afternoon.
Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, said in a statement to NBC News, “We maintain that she should not be allowed to retroactively change her legal theory at the last minute to avoid legal proceedings against her. result.”
Carroll attempted to amend her lawsuit shortly after Trump made a series of disparaging remarks on CNN’s live town hall on May 10.
“What kind of woman meets someone and proposes them, and within minutes, you’re playing with a handkerchief in the locker room, okay?” Trump said at that event. “I swear to my kids, I never did this, I don’t know who this woman is. It’s a fake story, a made-up story.”
The much-anticipated move comes a day after a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of Carroll in a separate civil case and ordered him to pay her $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. A town hall of criticism emerged.
The author accused the former president of raping her at a department store in the mid-1990s, then defamed her after she filed the allegations in 2019. She filed a civil defamation suit against him in 2019, and then filed a second civil lawsuit against him in 2022 that also included allegations against the battery.
Less than two weeks after the CNN town hall, Carroll’s attorneys asked Judge Kaplan to allow her to amend her original civil complaint to include Trump’s recent comments arguing that “facts and circumstances have changed.”
Trump denies raping Carroll. He has appealed the verdict in Carroll’s second case.