NBC News reports, E. Jean Carroll, writer who accused Trump of 1990s rape, files new lawsuit:
A writer who accused former President Donald Trump of rape filed an upgraded lawsuit against him Thursday in New York, minutes after a new state law took effect, allowing victims of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago.
E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer filed the legal papers electronically as the Adult Survivor’s Act temporarily lifted the state’s usual deadlines for suing over sexual assault. She sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering, psychological harms, dignity loss and reputation damage.
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, first made the claim in a 2019 book, saying Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1995 or 1996.
Trump responded to the book’s allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll was “not my type.”
His remarks led Carroll to file a defamation lawsuit against him, but that lawsuit has been tied up in appeals courts as judges decide whether he is protected from legal claims for comments made while he was president.
Previously, Carroll had been barred by state law from suing over the alleged rape because too many years had passed since the incident.
New York’s new law, however, gives sex crime victims who missed deadlines associated with statute of limitations a second chance to file a lawsuit. A window for such suits will open for one year, after which the usual time limits will be reinstated.
At least hundreds of lawsuits are expected, including many filed by women who say they were assaulted by co-workers, prison guards, medical providers or others.
Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said in an email Thursday: “While I respect and admire individuals that come forward, this case is unfortunately an abuse of the purpose of this Act which creates a terrible precedent and runs the risk of delegitimizing the credibility of actual victims.”
In her new claims, Carroll maintains that Trump committed battery “when he forcibly raped and groped her” and that he defamed her when he denied raping her last month.
Trump said in his statement that Carroll “completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.”
Carroll’s new ability to sue Trump for rape could help her sidestep a potentially fatal legal flaw in her original defamation case.
If the courts ultimately hold that Trump’s original disparaging comments about Carroll’s rape allegation were part of his job duties, as president, she would be barred from suing him over those remarks, as federal employees are protected from defamation claims. No such protection would cover things he did prior to becoming president.
Note: Trump is also not protected for comments he has made since he has not been president. In October 2022, he posted on his Truth Social that Carroll was a “complete con job” following the news that a federal judge had rejected his bid to pause his deposition. This could serve as a new count for defamation.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who presides over the defamation lawsuit Carroll filed three years ago, may decide to include the new claims in a trial likely to occur in the spring.
Trump’s current lawyers said this week that they do not yet know whether they will represent him against the new allegations.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said at a court hearing this week that the new claims should not require much additional gathering of evidence. She already put a copy of the new claims in the original case file last week. Trump and Carroll also have already been deposed.
In a statement regarding the new lawsuit, Kaplan said her client “intends to hold Donald Trump accountable not only for defaming her, but also for sexually assaulting her, which he did years ago in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman.”
“Thanksgiving Day was the very first day Ms. Carroll could file under New York law so our complaint was filed with the court shortly after midnight,” she added.
Attorney Michael Madaio, a lawyer for Trump, said at the hearing that the new allegations are significantly different than the original defamation lawsuit and would require “an entirely new set” of evidence gathering.
Earlier this year, for a second time, E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer sought Donald Trump’s DNA:
A lawyer for a woman who accused former President Donald Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s and then filed a defamation lawsuit against him said Tuesday she will not seek to depose Trump prior to trial because it would cause unnecessary delay, but added that a DNA sample was still being sought.
Attorney Roberta Kaplan first made the revelation in Manhattan federal court during a pretrial hearing before explaining the decision to reporters outside the court as her client, E. Jean Carroll,stood by her side.
A deposition, Kaplan said, would “inevitably result in an inordinate amount of delay.”
“We want the case to go forward,” she said.
Carroll wants a DNA sample because, like Monica Lewinsky, she kept the dress. Will E. Jean Carroll’s Dress Be Revealed at Trump’s Deposition?
Former President Donald Trump is set to appear in court Wednesday, October 19 for his deposition in the defamation lawsuit from former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump sexually assaulted her decades ago.
It is unclear if the deposition will focus at any point on the black coat dress Carroll said she was wearing during the alleged assault.
[C]arroll told MSNBC in 2019 that she saved the garment, leaving it unlaundered, and kept it hanging on the back of her closet door for years.
“So, we have lucky things and this dress was unlucky. So when I hung it up, I wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, this is a talisman.’ I just never wanted to put it on again because it had horrible memories,” she said. “So it just hung there. I didn’t bag it up. I didn’t do anything, just sat there behind the raincoat. That’s it.”
Carroll tweeted in late January 2020 that it had been tested and her team had the results. She added that her attorney, Roberta Kaplan of the New York City firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, had served notice to Trump’s attorney to submit a sample of his DNA.
[In] May this year, a court filing revealed that lawyers for Trump and Carroll had agreed to resume a process for exchanging evidence and getting witness testimony in the lawsuit, CNBC reported. There has been no court ruling yet ordering or excusing Trump from providing a sample.
The court filing said that both sides would have to complete the resumed process in November, paving the way for the judge to potentially order a sample from Trump if his team resists providing one, according to CNBC.
Seems to me the DNA sample could be conclusive as to who is telling the truth. It either is or isn’t Trump’s DNA. I can’t imagine that the Judge will not order Trump to provide his DNA sample. After all, then-president Bill Clinton ws ordered to provide a DNA sample to Special Counsel Ken Starr. Sources: Clinton Gave DNA Sample To Starr’s Office.
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