A federal judge in New York on Tuesday allowed E. Jean Carroll to amend her initial defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump, permitting her to seek additional damages.
Carroll, a former magazine columnist, had asked a judge to amend her initial November 2019 lawsuit so she could seek additional punitive damages after Trump repeated comments about her during a May 11 town hall, comments similar to ones that a federal jury found to be defamatory.
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She is requesting an award of at least $10 million after the jury last month assessed Trump $5 million in civil damages for sexual abuse and defamation.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in the Southern District of New York came just hours after Trump was arraigned and pleaded not guilty in Miami on charges related to his handling of classified documents.
Attorneys for the writer argued, “This conduct supports a very substantial punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same.”
The judge’s decision was incremental, which means a jury will still have to decide if Carroll is entitled to the additional damages.
The town hall happened one day after the jury verdict against Trump, and he said on live television, “I have no idea who this woman — this is a fake story, made up story.” He called Carroll a “wack job” who had a pet cat that she named “Vagina.”
Trump’s legal team previously requested that the court deny Carroll’s motion.
“He neither denied nor misrepresented the jury’s verdict by merely voiced his disagreement with the find and restated his position—which he had asserted throughout the duration of the proceedings—that the claimed event never happened,” Trump attorney Alina Habba wrote in a June 5 opposition to Carroll’s motion.
Carroll contends that the former president raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim.
Kaplan also set a deadline of next month for the Justice Department to provide whether it still believed Trump was acting within the scope of his employment when he made his initial denial of her claims in 2019.
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The Justice Department under Trump and President Joe Biden said the former president was still acting within the scope of his official duties, which temporarily held up her original lawsuit on appeal.
After the May jury finding in Carroll’s favor, the Justice Department requested more time to assess the agency’s most recent position on the matter.
