Attorneys for former President Trump asked a judge in the Southern District of New York to delay the start of his sexual assault and defamation trial for one month.
Trump’s attorneys want a “cooling off” period following the former President’s unprecedented indictment by a Manhattan grand jury and arraignment on 34 felony counts of business fraud related to hush money paid to at least two women ahead of the 2016 Presidential election.
Attorney Joe Tacopina, who’s defending Trump in the Manhattan hush money case, argued in a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan that jurors in the sex assault trial will have the criminal charges “top of mind” when they are called due to intense media coverage that he asserts could taint the jury pool.
Writer E. Jean Carroll filed suit against Trump for battery under New York State’s Adult Suvivor’s Act, legislation on the same day it went into effect—Thanksgiving day.
Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, says Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
She already had a pending lawsuit against Trump for defamation, saying his public denials and disparaging comments have damaged her reputation. She is seeking unspecified damages in her battery lawsuit, asserting that Trump caused her lasting psychological harm.
In March, Kaplan denied a request from Trump attorneys to to exclude the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he brags that as a celebrity he can get away with sexually assaulting women, from the upcoming assault trial.
Kaplan has also rejected Trump’s bid to exclude testimony from two other women who claimed he sexually assaulted them, as well as evidence that Carroll suffered emotional harm.
Trump has denied Carroll’s assault allegations, saying she made them up to sell a book. In an October deposition for the upcoming trial, Trump was dismissive of Carroll’s claims, saying: “Physically she’s not my type.” During the deposition he also misidentified a photograph of Carroll as his ex-wife, Marla Maples.
Trump has also denied having an affair with Stormy Daniels, one of the women named in the felony hush money case, though former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid her $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election, and then, Cohen has said, was paid back personally by Trump.
