Former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll watches as Joe Tacopina, lawyer of former U.S. President Donald Trump, makes closing arguments during a civil trial where Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room within the mid-Nineties, and of defamation, Latest York, May 8, 2023.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Lawyers for Donald Trump on Thursday asked a federal judge to order a retrial on the query of monetary damages for a lawsuit accusing the previous president of sexually assaulting author E. Jean Carroll, or to sharply reduce the $5 million award a civil trial jury ordered for her last month.
Trump’s request leans heavily on the actual fact the jury didn’t find, as Carroll had alleged in her lawsuit, that Trump raped her in a Latest York department store within the mid-Nineties. It as an alternative found he was answerable for sexually abusing her.
Trump’s lawyers argued the $2 million in damages awarded to Carroll are “grossly excessive under applicable case law.”
“Such abuse could have included groping of the Plaintiff’s breasts through clothing or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape,” wrote Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina within the motion to Judge Lewis Kaplan.
Tacopina argued any damages that Carroll, 79, receives for the alleged abuse must be within the “low six-figure range” that’s consistent with what he said is Latest York law, and with prior awards to plaintiffs “whose intimate parts were groped by a defendant.”
Tacopina also wrote the $2.7 million in compensatory damages the jury awarded Carroll for Trump’s defamatory statements about her allegations “was based on pure speculation” in regards to the purported reputational harm she suffered from his comments.
“Latest York courts have consistently held that compensatory damage awards of $100,000 or less for defamation claims are appropriate,” Tacopina wrote.
He said the damages for defamation must be not more than $368,000.
Carroll’s attorney in an announcement scoffed at Trump’s argument, and noted the jury unanimously found he sexually abused Carroll.
“Trump now argues that, even when he did those things, Ms. Carroll doesn’t deserve the $5 million in damages that the jury awarded,” said Carroll’s lawyer, Robbie Kaplan.
“But Trump’s arguments are frivolous — the jury fastidiously considered the evidence that Ms. Carroll presented, and Trump didn’t placed on a single witness of his own,” said the lawyer, who isn’t related to the judge. “This time, Trump won’t find a way to flee the implications of his actions.”
Carroll testified that Trump, 76, raped her in a dressing room on the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan after a probability encounter.
Trump has repeatedly denied the claim and said Carroll had invented it.
Trump, who’s looking for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is appealing the jury’s verdict on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
Carroll has a separate Manhattan federal court lawsuit pending against Trump. It alleges he defamed her while he was serving as president in 2019, when she first went public together with her claim of rape in a June 2019 Latest York Magazine article. Trump at the moment said Carroll was lying, and that she was motivated each by political animus toward him and a desire to spice up sales of a book that included details of her allegations.
That suit has been delayed on account of questions of whether Trump could possibly be held civilly answerable for statements he made as president, in contrast to his statements about Carroll last fall, which he made as a non-public citizen.
Carroll late last month asked Judge Kaplan for permission to amend that lawsuit to incorporate claims of “very substantial monetary damages” against Trump for scathing comments he made about her at a CNN town hall a day after he lost the opposite lawsuit. Carroll is looking for at least $10 million from Trump within the pending lawsuit.
Trump in the course of the town hall said he didn’t sexually abuse Carroll and has no idea who Carroll was. He said Carroll’s claim was a “fake” and “made-up story” created by a “whack job.”
“Trump also insulted Carroll’s character and downplayed his sexual abuse of her by asking ‘what type of woman meets someone’ after which ‘inside minutes’ plays ‘hanky-panky in a dressing room,'” the amended grievance says.
“Trump’s defamatory statements post-verdict show the depth of his malice toward Carroll because it is difficult to assume defamatory conduct that might possibly be more motivated by hatred, unwell will, or spite,” the proposed grievance said.
The judge has not yet ruled on Carroll’s request to amend her lawsuit.
