E. Jean Carroll, former U.S. President Donald Trump rape accuser, arrives at Manhattan Federal Court for the continuation of the civil case, in New York City, May 9, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Donald Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about the writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 when she went public with claims he had raped her decades earlier.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, as part of that ruling, said that the upcoming trial for Carroll’s civil lawsuit against Trump will only deal with the question of how much the former president should pay her in monetary damages for defaming her.
Normally, a jury would determine at trial whether a defendant is liable for civil damages claimed by a plaintiff.
But Kaplan found that Carroll was entitled to a partial summary judgment on the question of Trump’s liability in the case because jurors at a trial in a separate, but related lawsuit in May found that Trump had sexually abused Carroll in a New York department store in the mid-1990s, and had defamed in statements he made as he denied her allegation last fall.
Carroll’s lawyers had argued, and Kaplan agreed Wednesday, that the jury’s verdict in that case effectively settled the legal question of whether Trump had defamed her in similar comments he made about Carroll in 2019.
The 25-page decision in U.S. District Court in Manhattan is the latest in a series of big losses for Trump in lawsuits filed by Carroll.
At the trial which ended in May, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages for the comments he made after he was president.
The suit that was the subject of Kaplan’s ruling Wednesday relates to statements about Carroll that Trump made when he was president as he denied her claim of rape.
Trial in the case is set to begin on Jan. 15.
Lawyers for Trump and Carroll did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Kaplan’s ruling.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.