E Jean Carroll adds post-verdict Trump remarks to defamation case
The columnist is seeking additional $10 million in damages after Trump doubled down on the contemptuous claims.
E Jean Carroll, the columnist who won a $5 million award for sexual assault and defamation against former US President Donald Trump, is seeking at least $10 million more in a new lawsuit that wants him liable for comments he made after the verdict made.
An amended lawsuit seeking $10 million in punitive damages — and more in punitive damages — was filed Monday in Manhattan by Carroll’s attorneys, who say Trump’s comments in response to her rape allegations have tarnished her reputation to the point that she lost her old job as an Elle magazine advice columnist.
In the rewritten lawsuit, they allege that he “doubled down” on derogatory comments about Carroll during a cable TV appearance a day after the verdict.
“Trump’s post-verdict defamatory statements demonstrate the depth of his malice toward Carroll, as it is difficult to imagine defamatory conduct that may have been motivated more by hatred, ill-will or spite,” the attorneys wrote.
“This conduct supports very substantial damages in Carroll’s favor, both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same.”
A nine-member jury decided two weeks ago that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll in an upscale Manhattan department store in the early spring of 1996.
Carroll first revealed her claims that Trump raped her in a locker room in a 2019 book. She testified about her experience at trial, and while the jury decided that Carroll had not proven she had been raped, it did find that Trump sexually assaulted her.
Joe Tacopina, a Trump attorney, declined to comment on the new claims.
The lawyers filed the new claims by amending a libel suit that had been suspended when an appeals court decided whether Trump could be held liable for comments he made in 2019 while he was president. The US Department of Justice supports its lawyers’ claims that the United States should be replaced as the defendant.
In the new claim, Carroll’s lawyers said Trump, “undaunted by the jury’s verdict, persisted in maliciously defaming Carroll again” the next day at a “town hall” event hosted by CNN.
“Repeating his previous slanderous statements, he claimed to an audience all too ready to cheer him on, ‘I never met this woman. I have never seen this woman,” the lawyers wrote. They pointed to Trump’s repeated denials about the alleged assaults and comments he made calling Carroll an “asshole” and her story a “fake.”
“These statements led to enthusiastic cheers and applause from the audience live.”