A federal judge Thursday set E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial against former President Donald Trump for early next year.
In a brief scheduling order, US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said the civil trial will begin on January 15, 2024.
Kaplan had on Tuesday granted Carroll’s motion to file an amended complaint in the still-pending case against the former president seeking new damages of at least $10 million, based in part on comments Trump made during a CNN town hall last month. past.
Lawyers for Carroll, a writer, highlighted a number of comments Trump made at the CNN event, including that he never met or saw Carroll and that his allegations were fabricated.
“I have never met this woman. I never saw this woman,” Trump said during the appearance on CNN, while he also referred to Carroll’s claims as “false” and “made up,” his lawyers said.
Trump «doubled down on his previous defamatory statements» during the town hall, Carroll’s lawyers wrote in the motion seeking the amended complaint.
Trump’s team had tried to block the delayed defamation suit.
On Tuesday, Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, said her team did not believe Carroll should have been allowed to amend the defamation complaint: «We hold that he should not be allowed to retroactively change his legal theory, at the last moment, to avoid the consequences. of an adverse judgment against him».
The pending defamation case dates back to 2019, when Carroll publicly accused the then-president of raping her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store near her Fifth Avenue home in New York City in 1995 or 1996.
She had sued Trump over allegations that he defamed her when he was president by calling her claims a «hoax» and a «scam» when she publicly accused him in her 2019 book «What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.» .»
A jury in New York found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defamation last month in a separate case she brought against him. But that jury did not find that the evidence showed that Trump raped her.
dareh gregorian contributed.