Attorneys for Donald Trump have tried to stop a defamation lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, which has been stalled since the early 1990s. They are using a successful verdict of $5 million that she received in a separate case against former President Barack Obama.
In a filing to the Manhattan federal court, it is argued that Trump cannot be accused of defaming Carroll because in another case a jury found him liable but not for rape.
In the filing, it was stated that the “operative question” in this case has been and always will be, “whether a rape took place in the Bergdorf Goodman changing room,” and that the jury “found no such occurrence.”
Carroll claims that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store during the mid-1990s. Last year, Carroll filed a defamation and battery suit against Trump for his post-presidency remarks calling her allegations a “con.”
A jury awarded Carroll $3 million in defamation and $2 million in battery after a trial which featured live testimony by Carroll and videotaped testimony by Trump.
The battery claim contained different elements including a rape and a sexual abuse. On its verdict sheet, the jury was asked if Carroll, 79 had proved “by a majority of evidence” that Mr. The jury of nine members checked the box which said that Trump had not raped Carroll. The jury, when asked if Carroll had proven that “Mr. Trump abused Ms. Carroll,” checked the box that read “yes.”
After the verdict, jurors didn’t speak to reporters to explain their decision. Carroll testified that she was attacked behind her and didn’t see how Trump penetrated.
Carroll’s second suit against Trump was the case that went to court.
When Carroll went public with her allegations in 2019, the first allegation was that then-President Trump called them a hoax and a con job.
The case, now known as Carroll I, was stalled at a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. over whether Trump’s comments were immune from liability since he was President when they were made. In April, the case went back before U.S. district court judge Lewis Kaplan – who also presided over Carroll 2.
Carroll’s lawyers filed a motion last month to amend the original lawsuit in order to include a new claim for defamation after Trump called her a “wacky job” at a CNN Town Hall after the verdict was announced last month.
The amended complaint also changed references to “rape” into sexual abuse or sexual assault. Trump’s filing states that the amended complaint has removed 71 instances of the word “rape”.
Alina Habba, a Trump lawyer, said in a press release that Carroll tried to “retrofit her lawsuit” “while blatantly disregarding the portion which undermines the viability her claim.”
Habba stated that “Ms. Carroll, facing the Carroll II jury rejecting her rape accusations, now sees the need to remove almost every reference to the word “rape” in her complaint and abandon her narrative she has been conveying to the public for many years.”
The Trump filing urges the court not to allow Carroll’s defamation claim to be added to the CNN townhall where Trump called Carroll a wacky job who he had never met.
According to the filing, Trump “neither denied or misrepresented the jury verdict” at the town hall. “But he merely voiced a disagreement with the findings and reiterated his position — that he had maintained throughout the entire proceedings — that the alleged event never occurred.”
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, disputed Trump’s claim that the previous verdict hurt her case.
Kaplan stated that “contrary to Donald Trump’s latest arguments, this jury verdict is completely logical. Because the jury believed E. Jean Carroll’s testimony that Trump had sexually abused Ms. Carroll, they concluded that Trump knowingly lied when he claimed otherwise later.”
