(New York) An American journalist, E. Jean Carroll, who accuses Donald Trump of having raped her in the 1990s, relaunched her civil lawsuit against the former President of the United States on Thursday, thanks to a new law in New York that protects victims of sexual assault.
A double court case of alleged rape and defamation opposes since 2019, before the federal civil justice of Manhattan, Mme Carroll, 78, to Mr. Trump, 76, who both produced their sworn depositions in October before a New York judge.
In the defamation proceedings, E. Jean Carroll, author and former columnist for the magazine Shehad attacked Donald Trump in civil in November 2019. She accused him of having defamed her for having called a “complete lie”, in June 2019, his rape allegations in a fitting room of a new department store. Yorkers in 1995 or 1996.
The Republican president then in office (2017-2021) replied that he had never met her and that she was “not his kind of woman”. His lawyers have also always claimed that he was protected in 2019 by his immunity as head of state.
As for the rape charges, Ms.me Carroll had not been able to file a formal complaint in 2019 since the alleged facts were time-barred.
However, on November 24, a new law in the State of New York (“Adult Survivors Act”) came into force allowing, for one year, victims of sexual assault to reactivate their possible old complaints and claim a civil trial.
The law firm of M.me Carroll, Kaplan Hecker and Fink, and the federal justice system in Manhattan therefore released several court documents Thursday accusing Mr. Trump of “rape” and requesting a civil trial in 2023 in order to obtain damages.
In the introduction to the complaint, which is now admissible and which relates all the facts, Donald Trump is accused “about 27 years ago […] in the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York (of) grabbing E. Jean Carroll, slamming and pinning her against the wall of a dressing room with his shoulder and raped her”.
The complainant had been silent for more than 20 years before telling her story in a book at the end of the 2010s in favor of the #metoo movement launched in 2017 against violence against women.
“If I respect and admire the people who speak out, this case unfortunately constitutes a diversion of the objective of the law which creates a serious precedent and risks delegitimizing the words of real victims” reacted Thursday to AFP Alina Habba, Mr. Trump’s lawyer in the case.
Last October, the former president called the accusations a “hoax and a lie”.
And this new rant from the businessman on October 12 on his Truth Social network, making fun of this alleged rape, also allows Mr.me Carroll to relaunch the defamation component of his legal action against Mr. Trump, targeted this time as a private citizen without presidential immunity.