E. Jean Carroll has decided to charge ex-US President Donald Trump with six allegations including first-degree rape.
The information was revealed in a federal court document that served as a sneak peek of Carroll’s upcoming lawsuit in the Southern District of New York. Carroll is suing Trump for defamation after he denied that he sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s.
Carroll has long said that Donald Trump sexually abused her, but due to the statute of limitations, she was only able to make indirect accusations. Carroll will be able to bring a sexual battery claim against Trump as of November 24 because of the passage of New York’s Adult Survivors Act.
The following is stated in an early draft of the complaint, which was submitted on Thursday to federal court:
The New York Penal Law’s Article 130 defines sexual offenses as including, but not limited to, rape in the first degree ( 130.35), rape in the third degree ( 130.25), sexual abuse in the first degree ( 130.65), sexual abuse in the third degree ( 130.55), sexual misconduct ( 130.20), and forcible touching ( 130.52). Donald Trump’s actions fall under these definitions.
When Carroll first made her accusations public, Trump was still in office and told reporters, “She’s not my type.” Trump allegedly “attacked” her “without her consent” in order to “satisfy his own sexual cravings,” according to the lawsuit. The complaint claims that “Trump’s physical contact with Carroll was insulting and unlawful under all the circumstances.” “Despite Carroll’s efforts to defend herself, Trump persisted in attacking and raping her.”
It won’t be official until the Adult Survivors Act goes into effect later this month that the case will be filed in federal court, with red language annotated to indicate additional charges.
Trump’s lengthy statement through his political action organization Save America, which he also released on his platform Truth Social on October 12, was featured in the new lawsuit as promised. In it, Trump made fun of Carroll, her attorney, the American legal system, and the federal judge overseeing the case.
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Donald Trump wrote in an attack on the court system, calling it a “broken disgrace,” saying, “This ruling is from the Judge who was just overturned on my similar case.” On the day the former president made his speech, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan turned down Trump’s plea to halt discovery. The decision made it possible for Trump’s impending Oct. 19 deposition.
Carroll’s defamation charges may have been able to overcome a legal obstacle because of Trump’s most recent verbal barrage. The former president asserted that because he was speaking to reporters in his official role, he was exempt from civil culpability. Under the leadership of Bill Barr and Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice concurred, but Kaplan disagreed.
Trump achieved a partial victory on appeal, and the D.C. Court of Appeals will make the ultimate decision.
Donald Trump appears to have given Carroll room to make the case that he could not have made those statements in any official capacity by making the same denial after he left office. His utterances from October 12, 2022, are included in the current lawsuit’s defamation claim, not ones he made while he was still in office.
