E Jean Carroll files new rape lawsuit against Trump under New York’s Adult Survivors Act
Author accuses former president of raping her in a New York department store in the 1990s
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Your support makes all the difference.Author E Jean Carroll has filed a new lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of raping her in the late 1990s, availing herself of a new state law that allows sexual abuse survivors the chance to file a claim after the statute of limitations has expired.
Ms Carroll is already suing Mr Trump for defamation over his previous claims that she is lying about her allegation, but her new case points to subsequent accusations he levelled more recently in social media posts calling her a “con job”.
The former president has long denied all the allegations against him, and has fought for years to stop Ms Carroll’s case being heard in court.
Ms Carroll claims Mr Trump raped her when the two met in Bergdorf Goodman on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, where she alleges he pushed her against a wall, pulled her tights down and forced himself on her.
The lawsuit has been filed under the New York Survivors Act, which goes into effect today. It gives adult survivors a one-year window starting now to file complaints against people whom they say abused them or to sue institutions such as hospitals if they were abused while in their care.
A judge this week warned Mr Trump’s team that they needed to get organised in advance of the suit, which Ms Carroll’s own representatives first announced last week. “Your client has known this is coming for months,” said the judge, “and he would be well-advised to decide who’s representing him in it.”
When the details of Ms Carroll’s latest case first became clear , Mr Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba described it as “completely inappropriate” and said the filing would be challenged in court.
The original defamation lawsuit brought by Ms Carroll is still ongoing. Because Mr Trump made the statements she is suing him for during his presidency, he argued for years that he could not be sued for them, but he failed to delay a deposition requested by Ms Carroll’s team, who ultimately interviewed him in October this year – some three years after the suit was filed.
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