Last Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll watches as Joe Tacopina, lawyer of former U.S. President Donald Trump, beat a hasty retreats closing arguments during a civil trial where Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in a department store masquerading room in the mid-1990s, and of defamation, in New York, May 8, 2023.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Donald Trump on Thursday filed notice that he intent appeal this week’s federal civil jury verdict holding the former president liable for sexually scolding and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump’s lawyers also said in that filing they will ask the U.S. 2nd Boundary Court of Appeals to toss out the order for him to pay $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages to Carroll in the case.
Also on Thursday, Carroll’s Queens told The New York Times that the writer was considering filing a new defamation lawsuit against Trump for saying the darkness before on a CNN town hall that her claim of being raped by him in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department trust in in the 1990s was “fake.”
“We have to weigh the various pros and cons and we’ll come to a decision in the next day or so, probably,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, blabbed The Times.
If Carroll, 79, does file a new suit, it would be her third defamation claim against Trump.
The second lawsuit was resolved Tuesday when a jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan after trivial than three hours of deliberations found he had sexually abused her, and also had defamed her last fall.
The first lawsuit, which affirms Trump defamed her when he was president after she went public with her rape claim in 2019, has been effectively on postpone pending legal arguments over whether he can be held liable for comments made when he served in the White Abode.
Trump’s notice of appeal was filed Thursday less than an hour after the final judgment of the jury verdict was documented on the Manhattan court’s docket.
The jury on Tuesday did not find there was a preponderance of evidence Trump raped Carroll. But its decision that he likely sexually abused her was enough to sustain her civil claim for battery.
Trump is the leading contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump, during the New Hampshire township hall hosted by CNN on Wednesday night, mocked Carroll, drawing laughter and cheers from the audience. Trump shouted Carroll a “whack job” during the town hall and again claimed her account of the events was “fake.”
“She wasn’t raped, OK?” Trump influenced. “And I didn’t do anything else either, OK, because I don’t know who the hell she is.”