(New York) Former US President Donald Trump will be able to testify later than planned in the defamation trial between him and columnist E. Jean Carroll, a federal judge ruled on Sunday.
The lawsuit, in which the former White House tenant could be forced to pay millions of dollars in damages to Mme Carroll, is scheduled to begin Tuesday and could end as early as Thursday.
However, Mr. Trump must attend his mother-in-law’s funeral on Thursday.
The ex-president therefore sought to postpone the start of the trial by a week. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, however, denied the request, arguing that such a schedule change would have disrupted potential jurors, attorneys and court staff who were informed of the trial’s start date seven months ago. .
In a one-page order issued Sunday, Judge Kaplan instead ruled that Mr. Trump’s testimony could take place on Monday, January 22, even though all other stages of the trial are completed on Thursday.
Jury selection in the case will take place Tuesday, before attorneys’ opening statements.
The lawyers representing Mme Carroll intends to ask jurors to award their client $10 million in compensatory damages, plus several million dollars in punitive damages.
Mme Carroll, who is 80, won a $5 million judgment for sexual abuse and defamation last May from a civil jury that heard her testify that Mr. Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in midtown Manhattan in the spring of 1996.
Mr. Trump did not attend this trial and has repeatedly maintained that he never knew Mr.me Carroll. According to him, Mme Carroll allegedly invented this story to promote his memoir published in 2019.
Based on how rape is defined in New York State, the jury rejected the charge of rape, but found Mr. Trump responsible for sexual assault.
The jury also ruled that Mr. Trump had defamed Ms.me Carroll making certain statements in October 2022.
The trial set to begin Tuesday, long delayed by appeals, stems from defamatory comments the judge said Mr. Trump made about Ms.me Carroll in 2019 and last May, the day after the jury’s verdict was announced.
Judge Kaplan ruled last year that the trial will focus solely on damages because the previous jury’s findings regarding sexual abuse and defamation can be accepted for purposes of the new trial.