A federal judge denied former President Donald Trump’s request for a new trial surrounding allegations brought forth by former columnist E. Jean Carroll.
Trump requested a new trial after a jury found him liable of defamation and battery and awarded Carroll with $5 million in May. Carroll accused the former president of raping her inside a dressing room in Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1995 or 1996, though the jury did not find Trump liable of the rape accusation.
Judge Lewis Kaplan shot down Trump’s request in the Wednesday ruling. Kaplan claimed the jury “did not reach a seriously erroneous result,” ABC News reported.
“Its verdict is not ‘a miscarriage of justice,'” Kaplan said.
Good morning. A judge has denied a new trial for Trump in the E. Jean Carroll case a day after Trump says he got a new target letter from Jack Smith, 16 fake electors were indicted in Michigan and Georgia Supreme Court rejected Trump’s appeal to stop Fani Wills from indicting… pic.twitter.com/u54e86oegf
— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) July 19, 2023
The former president’s lawyer Joe Tacopina had requested a mistrial, which Judge Kaplan denied in a May 1 ruling. The court prevented Trump’s attorneys from questioning Carroll on whether she tried to obtain surveillance footage from the store proving her allegations. Tacopina also argued the court expressed a corroborative view that no one was present on the store’s sixth floor at the time the alleged rape occurred. (RELATED: Trump Says E. Jean Carroll’s Story Is ‘Fake,’ Accuses Case Of Attempting ‘Election Interference’)
Trump’s attorneys filed a motion to end the civil lawsuit in December before it came to trial, arguing he had “absolute immunity” because he made the alleged defamatory remarks while president. Kaplan previously rejected the motion to dismiss the civil lawsuit since the reasons were allegedly “without merit.” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said Trump’s arguments to end the case “don’t work.”
Trump countersued Carroll with a defamation lawsuit for claiming he raped her after the civil suit ruling. She told reporters “Oh yes he did, oh yes the did” in response to the jury’s finding.