E. Jean Carroll exits the Manhattan Federal Court following the decision within the civil rape accusation case against former U.S. President Donald Trump, Latest York City, May 9, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
A federal judge on Monday dismissed a defamation counterclaim by Donald Trump against the author E. Jean Carroll in her pending lawsuit that accuses the previous president of defaming her after she wrote that he had raped her.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, in a separate order made public Monday, ruled that Carroll’s lawyers may give the Manhattan District Attorney’s office a videotape and transcript of their deposition of Trump that they took last fall for the lawsuit.
That order raises the possibility that Trump’s sworn testimony in Carroll’s case could possibly be used against the previous president as a part of the DA’s pending criminal prosecution.
DA Alvin Bragg Jr. charged Trump, 77, earlier this yr with falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. That case, through which Trump has pleaded not guilty, is ready to go to trial next May.
Trump’s counterclaim within the Carroll suit focused on what he argued were her false statements, which he alleged badly harmed his status, a day after a jury verdict in May in her favor for $5 million for sexual abuse and defamation in a related civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Carroll during a CNN interview said that she thought in her hed, “Oh, yes, he did — oh, yes, he did” — after jurors in that case didn’t find that Trump had raped her.
In the identical interview, Carroll described her encounter in court with Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina right after the jury verdict, when Tacopina shook hands along with her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who just isn’t related to the judge.
“Well, Joe Tacopina could be very likeable. He’s form of like an 18th Century strutting peacock,” Carroll said on CNN. “So, he stands proud his hand — first he congratulated Robbie. After which, he was congratulating people on the team. And as I put my hand forward, I said, ‘He did it and it.’ Then we shook hands, I passed on.”
Judge Kaplan, in dismissing the counterclaim, wrote that Carroll’s statements repeating a claim that Trump had raped her were “substantially true” since the jury had found he digitally penetrated her, even when it didn’t find that he had penetrated her together with his penis, as is required for a rape charge under Latest York law.
“In actual fact, each acts constitute ‘rape’ in common parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere,” Kaplan wrote.
Roberta Kaplan, in an announcement on the judge’s ruling “We’re pleased that the Court dismissed Donald Trump’s counterclaim.”
“That implies that the January 15th jury trial can be limited to a narrow set of issues and should not take very long to finish,” Roberta Kaplan said. “E. Jean Carroll looks forward to obtaining additional compensatory and punitive damages based on the unique defamatory statements Donald Trump made in 2019.”
Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba, said, “We strongly disagree with the flawed decision and can be filing an appeal shortly.”
Bragg’s office this May issued a subpoena for the videotape and transcript of the deposition Trump gave in Carroll’s civil case last fall.
Trump’s lawyers then asked a Latest York state court judge to dam the subpoena.
The judge last month ruled that Kaplan, who’s overseeing Carroll’s case, should determine whether a protective order covering the deposition precluded it from being given to the DA’s office by her lawyers.
Kaplan, in his order made public Monday, said Carroll’s lawyers could comply with the subpoena.
Although Trump’s lawyers had argued within the state court motion that the deposition was covered by the protective order, they didn’t renew that argument to Kaplan.
Carroll’s lawyers declined to comment Monday on the DA’ subpoena.
The district attorney Bragg’s office didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment concerning the judge’s order allowing him to acquire deposition
The deposition Trump gave features an exchange he had with Roberta Kaplan, who asked him concerning the infamous “Access Hollywood” comment made years earlier. In those comments, Trump bragged about sexually groping women without asking for his or her consent and getting away with it due to he was a “star.”
“Well, historically, that is true with stars,” Trump answered.
Roberta Kaplan then asked him if was “true with stars that they will grab women” by their genitals.
“Well, that is what — should you look over the past million years, I suppose that is been largely true. Not at all times, but largely true. Unfortunately, or fortunately,” Trump replied.
Carroll’s lawyer then asked him if he considered himself to be a “star.”
“I feel you may say that, yeah,” he answered.
Carroll, 79, sued Trump in 2019, claiming the then-president defamed her in comments he made earlier that yr denying allegations she first made in a Latest York magazine article that he raped her within the dressing room of a Manhattan department store after a likelihood encounter within the mid-Nineteen Nineties.
That suit is the one scheduled to go to trial in January.
Carroll individually sued Trump in late 2022. That motion made the civil claim of rape — based on her account of the alleged attack within the Nineteen Nineties — together with defamation, which stemmed from disparaging comments Trump made about her in 2022.
Carroll’s allegation of rape was allowed under a latest state law that opened a one-year window permitting accusers in sexual abuse cases to file civil claims that otherwise can be barred by the statute of limitations.
That second case went to trial this spring and ended when the jury found Trump answerable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her, and ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
Trump is appealing that verdict.
In July, Judge Kaplan rejected a request by Trump to sharply reduce the jury award against him.
“The jury on this case didn’t reach ‘a seriously erroneous result,'” Kaplan wrote in an order that quoted Trump’s arguments.
“Its verdict just isn’t ‘a miscarriage of justice,’ ” the judge wrote.
Earlier in July, the U.S. Department of Justice dropped a virtually three-year effort to shield Trump from civil liability from Carroll’s first lawsuit, which pertains to comments he made about her while president.