A federal judge tossed out Donald Trump’s defamation claim against E. Jean Carroll, the New York author who last year sued him for allegedly raping her in a department store dressing room decades ago.
The former president, who denies attacking her, accused Carroll of trashing his reputation by continuing to publicly accuse him of rape, including during a May 10 appearance on CNN, despite a jury concluding in May that his actions during the alleged 1996 assault amounted to sexual abuse rather than rape.
In dismissing the claim Monday, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said the jury’s finding that Trump penetrated Carroll with his finger was close enough to rape to justify her use of the word.
“Indeed, the finding of digital rape is essential to support the size of jury’s damages award on the battery claim — over $2 million,” Kaplan wrote. “It accordingly is the ‘truth,’ as relevant here, that Mr. Trump digitally raped Ms. Carroll.”
Trump filed his counterclaim in June, a month after the jury held him liable for sexually abusing Carroll. The same jury concluded Trump was not liable for rape, but Carroll still won the trial and was awarded a total of $5 million in damages. Carroll’s separate 2019 defamation claim against Trump is set for trial Jan. 15.
The dismissal means the January trial “will be limited to a narrow set of issues and shouldn’t take very long to complete,” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement. “E. Jean Carroll looks forward to obtaining additional compensatory and punitive damages based on the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made in 2019.”
“We strongly disagree with the flawed decision and will be filing an appeal shortly,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said in a statement.
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The case is Carroll v. Trump, 22-cv-10016, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
--With assistance from Patricia Hurtado.
(Updates with comment from Carroll’s lawyer.)
