E. Jean Carroll, a former longstanding advice columnist for Elle Magazine, intends to file a battery complaint against former President Donald Trump, whom she alleges assaulted her in Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s.
Carroll’s complaint will put to the test a new New York law, the New York Adult Survivors Act, which offers adult victims of sexual assault a one-time opportunity to file civil lawsuits notwithstanding expired statutes of limitations.
She had previously sued him for defamation for saying that she lied about the alleged attack, and she will suit him again for defamation next week in response to his second public denial of the allegations.
The author alleged in her 2019 book, which was published in New York Magazine, that Trump assaulted her following a chance encounter in the lingerie department of the upscale department store Bergdorf Goodman.
Following banter about one of them trying on a bodysuit from the lingerie assortment, according to her account, Trump held her against a wall, ripped off her tights, and forced himself upon her.
The new complaint states, “Around 27 years ago, playful banter at the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York City took a dark turn when Defendant Donald J. Trump seized Plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, forced her up against a dressing room wall, pinned her in place with his shoulder, and raped her.”
On November 24, the day the new state law goes into effect, Carroll will file suit.
Roberta Kaplan, her attorney, said that the claimed assault caused her client “considerable pain and suffering, lasting psychological effects, loss of dignity, and invasion of her privacy.”
Trump, who filed to run for president for the third time in a row a few days ago, has angrily refuted the allegations, calling Carroll a liar and her case a ‘complete scam job.’
He has stated that he has never physically touched her and that she is not his “type.”
Carroll then filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump, alleging that his words had harmed her reputation.
At the time, Trump was still in office, and the Justice Department intervened to claim that Trump made his remarks in his official capacity as commander-in-chief, which legally required dismissal of Carroll’s lawsuit.
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, referred to Kaplan’s filing as “classic gamesmanship.”
She stated, “This submission is entirely inappropriate, and we will bring this to the court’s attention.”
In the brief, Carroll also requests that the judge supervising her defamation lawsuit also handle the new complaint, thus combining the two cases. She requested that the trial be scheduled for April. The defamation lawsuit is currently scheduled to go to trial in February.
Recently, Carroll’s attorneys deposed Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence and have also heard from numerous other women who claim Trump inappropriately touched them. Both were questioned as part of the team’s effort to demonstrate the real estate mogul’s pattern of action.
The attorneys for Trump have also deposed Carroll.
Carroll has incorporated statements the former president has made about her since leaving office in her new complaint.
Trump remarked on his Truth Social Platform on October 12: “And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will.”
“This is not my type of chick!” He wrote that she has no idea what day, week, month, or year this alleged ‘event’ occurred. E. Jean Carroll is being untruthful.
The comments are similar to others Trump has made on the case, but they will require a different defense strategy because Trump was no longer a government official when he made them.