A federal judge denies Trump's request for new trial in E. Jean Carroll legal saga
A federal judge has rejected former President Donald Trump's motion for a new trial in the civil case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll.
A jury had previously found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, and awarded her $5 million in damages.
Senior district Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote in an order issued Wednesday that the jury in the case did not reach "a seriously erroneous result" and its verdict is not "a miscarriage of justice," as Trump had alleged.
The ruling came a week after the U.S. Justice Department declined to shield Trump from the defamation claim, reversing course on one of its most controversial decisions during the early stretch of the Biden administration.
Carroll filed the defamation lawsuit three years ago. At that time, then-Attorney General Bill Barr sided with Trump and said the former president had been acting within the bounds of his office as president. But Judge Kaplan had rejected that position — only to watch as the new Biden attorney general, Merrick Garland, also extended a legal shield to Trump.
The change in course added yet another legal burden for Trump, who is fighting criminal charges over accounting for alleged hush money payments in Manhattan, separate federal charges for alleged obstruction and willful retention of highly classified documents at his Florida resort, and a grand jury investigation in Georgia over his attempts to overturn the results of that 2020 presidential election in that state.
Separately, on Tuesday, Trump said that he had received word from the Justice Department that he's a target of the grand jury probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. An indictment could be imminent.
Rewind to the start of the Carroll legal case
In 2019, Carroll first publicly came forward saying Trump had raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s when the future president was just a businessman. Trump responded, denying the accusation and saying that the writer had ulterior motives.
Carroll sued Trump — twice (in 2019 and later in 2022) — for his public rebuke of her accusation.
In May, jurors sided with her, though didn't find Trump raped Carroll. The jury awarded her $5 million in total damages agreeing that he "sexually abused" her and that he defamed her when he denied her story.
But this civil case, much like Trump's criminal cases, is far from over.
Following her victory in May, Carroll and her lawyers have since asked a court to expand the scope of a separate lawsuit against Trump, seeking at least an additional $10 million in damages. [Copyright 2023 NPR]
