E Jean Carroll, who has already sued the former US president Donald Trump for defamation, has filed a new lawsuit accusing him of rape in the late 1990s.
The former Elle columnist is using the new state law, New York's Adult Survivors Act, which took effect on Thanksgiving, that allows sexual abuse survivors that chance to file a claim after the statute of limitations has expired.
The new case highlights subsequent accusations that Trump levelled more recently in social media posts calling her a "con job". But the Republican has long denied all the allegations against him and has fought for years to stop Carroll's case being heard in court.
The lawsuit alleges that Trump's underlying sexual assault severely injured Carroll, causing significant pain and suffering, lasting psychological harms, loss of dignity, and invasion of her privacy. It said his recent defamatory statement has only added to the harm that Carroll had already suffered.
Carroll: Journalist, Advice Columnist
E Jean Carroll is an American journalist, author and columnist. Her column "Ask E. Jean" which runs in Elle magazine became one of the longest-running advice columns in American publishing. Her column, that ran from 1993 – 2020, had opinions on sex, compassion for letter-writers experiencing difficult life situations, and insistence that women should never, never structure their lives around men, among others.
She is also the first female contributing editor for Playboy. Carroll stands out with her gonzo-style first person narrative as a journalist. She claimed to have been fired from Elle in February 2020 and posted the reason on Twitter... "Because Trump ridiculed my reputation, laughed at my looks, and dragged me through the mud." However, the magazine said its decision to fire Carroll was a business decision and nothing to do with Trump.
Carroll is the author of the 2019 book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.
The Case
Carroll initially made the rape claim in the 2019 book, saying that Trump had raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1995 or 1996. The former US president responded to the book's allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll was "not my type".
This led the columnist to file a defamation lawsuit against him. But this has been tied up in the appeals court as judges decide whether he is protected from legal claims for comments made while he was the country's president. Carroll maintains that Trump committed battery when he forcibly raped and groped her, and that he defamed her when he denied raping her last month.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, told a court hearing that her client intends to hold Donald Trump accountable not only for defaming her, but also for sexually assaulting her, which he did years ago in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman.
But Trump denied the allegations. He said in a statement that "Carroll completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes swooned her. It is a hoax and a lie, just like all the other hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years."
The lawsuit stated that Trump's false, insulting and defamatory October 12 statement about Carroll and his actual malice in making that statement is fully consistent with his tried-and-true playbook for responding to credible public reports that he sexually assaulted women.
