Trump files motion for new trial in E. Jean Carroll case
Jack Birle
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Lawyers for former President Donald Trump have filed a motion for a new trial in a lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, an attempt to retry the case in which a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
In the motion filed Thursday, Trump’s lawyers argue the $5 million damages are “grossly excessive” because the jury found him not liable for raping Carroll but rather for sexually abusing her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s.
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“An award of $2 million for such conduct, which admittedly did not cause any diagnosed mental injury to Plaintiff, is grossly excessive under the applicable case law,” the motion said.
Trump’s lawyers also argue the $2.7 million compensatory damages awarded for the defamation claim “was based upon pure speculation.”
Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store in New York City in the mid-1990s and further accused him of defaming her for statements he made in response to her accusations.
Trump still faces another defamation lawsuit from Carroll regarding comments he made while he was president in 2019. Trump denied the accusations made by Carroll.
Lawyers for Carroll filed a motion last month to amend the other lawsuit against Trump to include comments he made during a CNN town hall after the ruling in the sexual battery and defamation lawsuit decided in May. Trump has maintained his innocence in both cases while also calling the accusations a “fake story.”
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“I have no idea who this woman is. This is a fake story, a made-up story. We had a horrible Clinton-appointed judge. He was horrible. He allowed her to put everything in. He allowed us to put nothing in. This is a fake story,” Trump told Kaitlan Collins on CNN in May.
The lawsuit in which the amendment was filed is the initial defamation lawsuit filed by Carroll in 2019 after Trump publicly denied her claims that he had raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. The lawsuit has been on hold after Judge Lewis Kaplan denied a motion in April to merge this lawsuit and the one that was decided earlier this month.