Left: E. Jean Carroll arrives at Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, May 9, 2023, in New York. A federal judge tossed out former President Donald Trump’s countersuit against Carroll who won a sex abuse lawsuit against him, ruling Monday, Aug. 7, 2023, that Trump can’t claim she defamed him by continuing to say she was not only sexually abused but raped. (AP, John Minchillo)/ Right: Former President Donald Trump speaks during the 56th annual Silver Elephant Gala in Columbia, S.C., Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023. (AP /Artie Walker Jr.)
Donald Trump’s attempt to countersue E. Jean Carroll failed miserably Monday after a federal judge in New York dismissed his lawsuit against the New York writer, noting that a jury did indeed find the former president liable for Carroll’s sexual abuse and that details around her claims of rape were “substantially true.”
The decision marks another victory for Carroll, who told the court in July that Trump’s countersuit suggesting it was she who defamed him for continuing to publicly state that he raped her in the 1990s, read like something from a staff writer at the satirical Onion.
Trump’s attorney Alina Habba told NBC they would file a response soon. She did not immediately return a request to Law&Crime for comment.
Carroll was awarded $5 million in her suit against Trump and the jury found that the former president, by a preponderance of the evidence, sexually abused Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room. The jury also found that Trump defamed Carroll by publicly declaring that her claims were a “hoax.” When Trump lost the suit to Carroll, it was the first time in U.S. history that a former president was found liable in civil court for sexual misconduct.
Explaining the reasoning behind his decision to dismiss Trump’s counterclaim on Monday, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan highlighted in the 24-page opinion the technical definition of rape that was provided at trial.
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Under New York state law, rape is defined as penetration with the penis, the judge noted. Trump penetrated Carroll with his fingers and he did so with force, the jury found unanimously. Applying a “common” understanding of the term under the circumstances, the defamation claim from Trump lacked merit, Kaplan ruled.
“Indeed, the jury’s verdict… establishes, as against Mr. Trump that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her albeit digitally rather than with his penis. Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms. Carroll’s ‘rape’ accusations,” Kaplan explained.
In a statement Monday, Carroll’s attorney Robbie Kaplan said: “We are pleased that the Court dismissed Donald Trump’s counterclaim. That means that the January 15th jury trial will be limited to a narrow set of issues and shouldn’t take very long to complete. E. Jean Carroll looks forward to obtaining additional compensatory and punitive damages based on the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made in 2019.”
Read the opinion from Judge Kaplan here.
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