Author E. Jean Carroll arrives in Manhattan Federal Court in New York, April 25, 2023, in a defamation case Carroll filed against former U.S. President Donald Trump, alleging He raped her in the ’90s and jury selection is about to begin.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images
Last month, a civil jury found Donald Trump responsible for sexually abusing and defaming author E. Jean Carroll, who filed a countersuit against her defamation The former president went on to say he raped her in New York in the mid-1990s.
“Oh yeah he did it, oh yeah he did it,” Carroll said in an interview with CNN on May 10, reiterating her accusation that Trump raped her.
the day before the jury United States District Court Manhattan awarded Carroll $5 million in Trump damages.
Trump’s new countersuit rests on the fact that a jury found he raped her without overwhelming evidence, even though it found he sexually abused her in Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room in the mid-1990s.
Trump’s attorney, Alina Haba, wrote in a countersuit filed Tuesday night that Trump had suffered “substantial damage to his reputation” as a result of Carroll’s “repeated lying and defamatory statements.”
Based on the jury’s verdict, the alleged rape “was clearly not committed,” Harba wrote.
But Carroll’s lawyers say that’s not true.
Carroll’s attorney, Robbie Kaplan, said in a statement, “Donald Trump is arguing again that the jury found him to have sexually abused Jean Carroll, but contrary to logic and fact, he was acquitted.”
Kaplan also said that four of the five defamatory statements Trump claimed were made outside the one-year statute of limitations in New York. The fifth “will not stand a motion to dismiss,” the attorneys added.
Kaplan called Trump’s countersuit “no more than his latest effort to delay accountability for the defamation of Jean Carroll that the jury has already found.”
Trump’s countersuit is the latest twist in a circuitous, multi-court legal battle surrounding Carroll’s allegations that Trump, 77, sexually assaulted her. Carroll, 79, first publicly claimed that she was raped by then-President Trump in a 2019 magazine article.
He immediately denied the claim, arguing that Carroll was motivated by political animosity in making up the story and hoping to boost sales of her then-to-be-published book detailing her experience and its impact on her life.
Carroll filed a civil lawsuit against Trump in November 2019, alleging that his denials defamed her.
The lawsuit, stalled for years by legal wrangling over whether Trump can be prosecuted for statements he made during his presidency, is expected to begin Jan. 15 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
If a trial goes ahead, it would come just as the 2024 Republican presidential primary is about to start. Trump, who is seeking the nomination in this race, has been leading a growing field of Republican candidates.
In late 2022, Carroll sued Trump separately in the same court, accusing him of beating Trump (in connection with the alleged rape) and accusing Trump of defaming her for comments he made about her claims last November.
The second lawsuit went to trial in April. A jury ultimately awarded Trump $5 million in damages to Carroll on May 9 after finding he likely sexually abused and defamed her.
Trump is appealing the verdict.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over both cases, this month allowed Carroll to amend her first lawsuit, which seeks $10 million in damages, to convert Trump’s CNN town hall speech against her. The day after the alleged defamatory remarks were included in the jury’s verdict. first outfit. The judge is not related to Carroll’s attorney.
Habba’s countersuit filed Tuesday is in response to the amended lawsuit and denies Carroll’s substantive allegations.