Donald Trump’s lawyers said on Tuesday that the former president deserves a new trial and a fresh chance to tell a jury why he berated writer E Jean Carroll for her sex abuse claims against him after she revealed them five years ago.
The lawyers made the assertion as they renewed challenges to the 83.3 million dollars (£65.6 million) awarded to Ms Carroll by a Manhattan jury in January.
The award raised to 83.3 million dollars (£65.6 million) what Mr Trump owes Ms Carroll after another jury last May awarded 5 million dollars (£3.8 million) to the longtime advice columnist after concluding that Mr Trump sexually abused her in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury department store in midtown Manhattan and then defamed her with comments in October 2022.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan had ordered the January jury to accept the findings of the earlier jury and only decide how much Mr Trump owed Ms Carroll for two statements he issued in 2019 after excerpts from Ms Carroll’s memoir were published by a magazine.
Ms Carroll testified that the comments ruined her career and left her fearing for her life after she received threats from strangers online.
Mr Trump did not attend the May trial but was a regular fixture at this year’s trial, shaking his head repeatedly and grumbling loudly enough from his seat at the defence table that a prosecutor complained that jurors could hear him.
Mr Kaplan, who threatened to ban him from the courtroom, severely limited testimony from the Republican frontrunner’s complaints about Ms Carroll, 80, continued during the trial from the campaign trail, providing fresh exhibits for Ms Carroll’s lawyers to show jurors.
The lawyers wrote, “this Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of president Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted.”
Mr Trump’s lawyers argued that Mr Trump should explain why he spoke as he did about Ms Carroll.
The lawyers wrote that Mr Trump had many compelling reasons to deny Ms Carroll’s claims publicly.
“Indeed, it is virtually unthinkable that president Trump’s ‘sole’ and ‘one and only’ motive for making the challenged statements was that he simply wanted to harm plaintiff — as opposed to wanting to defend his reputation, protect his family, and defend his presidency,” they said.
In 2019, Mr Trump derided Ms Carroll, saying she was “totally lying” to sell a memoir and that he had never met her, though a 1987 photo showed them and their then-spouses at a social event. He said the photo captured a moment when he was standing in a line.
He also has called Ms Carroll a “whack job” and said that she was not “his type,” a reference that Ms Carroll testified was meant to suggest she was too ugly to rape.
A lawyer for Ms Carroll did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
