NEW YORK (AP) — A writer who accused former President Donald Trump of rape filed a lawsuit against him Thursday in New York, minutes after a new state law took effect allowing victims of sexual violence from continuing attacks that occurred decades ago.
The lawyer for E. Jean Carroll filed the legal documents electronically because the Adult Survivors Act temporarily waived the state’s usual deadlines for filing a sexual assault lawsuit. She sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering, psychological harm, loss of dignity and damage to reputation.
Carroll, a longtime columnist for Elle magazine, first made the claim in a 2019 book, claiming that Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1995 or 1996.
Trump responded to the book’s claims by saying it could never have happened because Carroll was “not my type.”
His remarks led Carroll to bring a libel suit against him, but that lawsuit has been stalled in appeals courts as judges decide whether he is protected from prosecution for comments made while he was president.
Previously, Carroll had been barred by state law from pursuing the alleged rape because too many years had passed since the incident.
New York’s new law, however, gives victims of sex crimes who have missed the deadlines associated with the statute of limitations a second chance to file a lawsuit. A window for such lawsuits will open for one year, after which the usual time limits will be reinstated.
At least hundreds of lawsuits are expected, many from women who say they were assaulted by co-workers, prison guards, medical providers or others.
In her new claims, Carroll argues that Trump committed battery “when he forcibly raped and groped her” and 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 that crowded department store in New York City and within minutes ‘passed out’ to her. It’s a hoax. and a lie, like all the other pranks that have been played to me over the past seven years.”
Carroll’s new ability to sue Trump for rape could help him avoid a potentially deadly legal loophole in his initial defamation case.
If the courts ultimately determine that Trump’s original derogatory comments about Carroll’s rape allegation were part of his job as president, he would be barred from prosecuting him for those comments because federal employees are protected from abuse. defamation claims. Such protection would not cover the things he did before becoming president.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is presiding over the libel suit that Carroll filed three years ago, may decide to include the new claims in a trial likely to take place in the spring.
Trump’s current attorneys said this week they don’t yet know whether they will represent him against the new allegations.
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, told a hearing this week that the new claims should not require much additional evidence. She already put a copy of the new claims in the original file last week. Trump and Carroll have also been deposed before.
In a statement regarding the retrial, Kaplan said his client “intends to hold Donald Trump responsible not only for defaming her, but also for sexually assaulting her, which he did a while ago. years in a Bergdorf Goodman box”.
“Thanksgiving Day was the very first day that Ms. Carroll could file a lawsuit under New York law, so our lawsuit was filed in court shortly after midnight,” she added.
Attorney Michael Madaio, Trump’s attorney, said during the hearing that the new allegations were very different from the original defamation lawsuit and would require “a whole new set” of evidence.
A lawyer for Trump did not respond to a message seeking comment on Wednesday. Another message seeking comment was sent to the lawyer after the complaint was filed less than 10 minutes into the new day.