NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s attorneys mentioned Tuesday that the ex-president deserves a brand new trial and a contemporary likelihood to inform a jury why he berated author E. Jean Carroll for her intercourse abuse claims in opposition to him after she revealed them 5 years in the past.
The attorneys made the assertion as they renewed challenges to the $83.3 million awarded to Carroll in January by a Manhattan jury.
The award raised to $88.3 million what Trump owes Carroll after one other jury final Could awarded $5 million to the longtime recommendation columnist after concluding that Trump sexually abused her in spring 1996 within the dressing room of a luxurious division retailer in midtown Manhattan after which defamed her with feedback in October 2022.
Choose Lewis A. Kaplan had ordered the January jury to just accept the findings of the sooner jury and solely determine how a lot Trump owed Carroll for 2 statements he issued in 2019 after excerpts from Carroll’s memoir have been printed by {a magazine}. Carroll testified that the feedback ruined her profession and left her fearing for her life after she acquired threats from strangers on-line.
Trump didn’t attend the Could trial however was a daily fixture at this 12 months’s trial, shaking his head repeatedly and grumbling loudly sufficient from his seat on the protection desk {that a} prosecutor complained that jurors might hear him.
Kaplan, who threatened to ban him from the courtroom, severely restricted testimony from the Republican frontrunner for president. Trump’s complaints about Carroll, 80, continued through the trial from the marketing campaign path, offering contemporary reveals for Carroll’s attorneys to point out jurors.
“This Courtroom’s faulty choice to dramatically restrict the scope of President Trump’s testimony nearly definitely influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a brand new trial is warranted,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump’s attorneys argued that Trump deserves to elucidate why he spoke as he did about Carroll.
The attorneys wrote that Trump had a spread of compelling causes to publicly deny Carroll’s claims.
“Certainly, it’s nearly unthinkable that President Trump’s ‘sole’ and ‘one and solely’ motive for making the challenged statements was that he merely needed to hurt Plaintiff — versus eager to defend his status, shield his household, and defend his Presidency,” they mentioned.
In 2019, Trump derided Carroll, saying she was “completely mendacity” to promote a memoir and that he’d by no means met her, although a 1987 photograph confirmed them and their then-spouses at a social occasion. He mentioned the photograph captured a second when he was standing in a line. He additionally has known as Carroll a “whack job” and mentioned that she wasn’t “his sort,” a reference that Carroll testified was meant to counsel she was too ugly to rape.
A lawyer for Carroll didn’t instantly return a message in search of remark.
