Calay News
Former journalist E. Jean Carroll, whom Donald Trump was ordered to pay $5 million for a 1996 sexual assault, filed a new defamation lawsuit on Monday, following the former US president’s statements after the verdict against her.
Trump called Carroll “crazy” in an interview on CNN the day after the unanimous verdict handed down May 9 by a nine-member jury in New York. During the interview in front of viewers, the Republican primary candidate for the 2024 presidential election again claimed he did not know the former Elle magazine columnist and dismissed the incident as “made up.”
The new lawsuit is based on Trump’s statements made “after the verdict, which demonstrate his deep hostility toward Carroll,” according to attorney Roberta Kaplan. Kaplan’s client is seeking significant compensation with the goal of “punishing Trump and deterring him from committing defamatory acts in the future, as well as deterring others from doing the same.”
Prior to the CNN interview, the civil jury held former President Trump (2017–2021) liable for sexual assault against Carroll and ordered him to pay a total of $5 million to the victim, who accused him of raping her in an intimate apparel store fitting room in New York in the spring of 1996. In addition, the jury found Trump guilty of defamation for his statements in 2022. Trump has appealed the ruling.
This new lawsuit is in addition to an ongoing legal process that began in 2019, in which E. Jean Carroll filed previous defamation claims against Donald Trump. The earlier proceeding had been delayed due to procedural issues, primarily related to determining whether Trump enjoyed presidential immunity in 2019, when he was still in office in the White House.
