Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday denied a request from attorneys for former President Trump for a mistrial in the rape and defamation lawsuit currently on trial in New York City, alleging Kaplan made “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” against him.
E. Jean Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, filed suit against former President Trump for battery under New York State’s Adult Survivor’s Act on the same day the legislation went into effect—Thanksgiving day.
Ahead of the court proceedings, Judge Kaplan of the Southern District of New York rejected several requests from the Trump team, including delaying the case for a one-month “cooling off” period following Trump’s arraignment April 4 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to at least two women ahead of the 2016 Presidential election. That hearing took place just a few blocks from where the rape trial is occurring.
Kaplan has also rejected Trump’s bid to exclude the infamous “Access Hollywood” video, in which he brags that he as a celebrity can get away with sexually assaulting women, as well as testimony from two other women who claimed he sexually assaulted them. He further rejected a request to block evidence that Carroll suffered emotional harm.
On Thursday, Carroll began undergoing an aggressive round of questioning from Trump attorney Joseph Tacopina who asserted that she had used the word “supposedly” in reference to her rape claim, to which she countered, “Not supposedly. I was raped.”
On Wednesday Carroll had gone into detail about how a chance encounter with Trump at a Manhattan department store in 1996 turned flirtatious before becoming violent in a dressing room. She said Trump slammed her against a wall, yanked down her tights and raped her before she kneed him and fled.
Trump, who is not currently present at the trial, attacked the trial on his website trial Truth Social on Wednesday, calling the case was “a made up SCAM” and asserting that Carroll’s lawyer is a political operative.
Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York warned Tacopina about his client’s actions, which he called “entirely inappropriate.”
When Tacopina promised to ask Trump not to post anything similar again, Kaplan replied, “We are getting into an area, conceivably, in which your client may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability.” He again warned Tacopina when Trump’s son Eric, tweeted assertions that Carroll’s lawyer had received funding from a wealthy Democratic donor.
Prior to filing her sexual battery lawsuit, Carroll had already filed suit against Trump for defamation, saying his public denials and disparaging comments have caused her psychological harm.
“He shattered my reputation,” she testified last week.
Trump has previously called her allegations “a con job,” a “hoax” and a “lie,” as well as “a complete scam,” which he maintains aren’t defamatory comments and are the truth.
While the former President is one of two people named on the defense’s list of witnesses, Tacopina has not confirmed whether he’ll be called to testify.
However, Carroll’s attorneys have said they plan to use a deposition of Trump taken in October, during which he asserted that Carroll was “not my type”—but then also misidentified a photograph of Carroll as his ex-wife, Marla Maples.
PHOTO: Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse, Manhattan
