Former President Trump on Thursday asked for a new trial in the civil case of E. Jean Carroll, roughly one month after he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
A jury awarded Carroll roughly $5 million, of which $2 million was for sexual abuse, after she testified that Trump had raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and then defamed her, causing her lasting harm.
Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, filed suit against the former President Trump for battery under New York State’s Adult Suvivors Act on the same day the legislation went into effect—Thanksgiving day. She already had a defamation suit pending at the time.
In Thursday’s filing Trump’s attorneys said that $2 million for sexual abuse was “excessive” since the jury had found Carroll was not raped, and that the conduct she alleged did not cause any diagnosed mental injury.
In her lawsuit, she asserted that Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She testified at trial that she’d lost her job at Elle magazine and received death threats after publishing her memoir, in which she detailed the assault.
In response to the Trump attorneys’ filing, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan aid in a statement that Trump’s arguments are “frivolous.”
The defamation portion of the jury’s award—which Trump’s attorneys on Thursday said was “based upon pure speculation”—came about after Trump had publicly called Carroll’s allegations “a con job,” a “hoax” and a “lie,” as well as “a complete scam.”
Trump went on CNN following the jury’s verdict, and called Carroll a “wack job” and said her civil trial was “rigged.” After that broadcast, Carroll filed a new lawsuit against him, seeking a new, “very substantial” amount in damages—$10 million.
Trump’s lawyers countered in the filing on Thursday that Carroll is seeking “double recovery” with the second lawsuit.
PHOTO: E. Jean Carroll 2019
