An American woman journalist who alleges that Donald Trump raped her in the mid-1990s has filed an upgraded lawsuit under a new law that protects victims of sexual assault.
CBS reports that decades after attacks may have occurred, the new filing by lawyers for E. Jean Carroll came minutes after a New York state law took effect that allows victims to sue without regard to statutes of limitation.
Carroll, 78, filed a federal civil defamation suit against Trump in November 2019, and that suit is ongoing. Both Carroll and Trump filed sworn depositions before a New York judge in October.
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, first made the claim in a 2019 book, saying Trump raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store in 1995 or 1996.
Trump responded to the book’s allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll was “not my type.”
His remarks led Carroll to file a defamation lawsuit against him, but that lawsuit has been tied up in appeals courts as judges decide whether he is protected from legal claims for comments made while he was president.
In the new suit, Carroll seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for psychological harm, pain and suffering, loss of dignity and damage to her reputation.
Carroll’s previous lawsuit is scheduled to head to trial at the beginning of 2023. The presiding judge may decide to include the new claims in the trial.
Account to the report, previously, Carroll had been barred by state law from suing over the alleged rape because too many years had passed since the incident.
New York’s new law, however, gives sex crime victims who missed deadlines associated with the statute of limitations a second chance to file a lawsuit. A window for such suits will open for one year, after which the usual time limits will be reinstated.
At least hundreds of lawsuits are expected, including many filed by women who say they were assaulted by co-workers, prison guards, medical providers or others.
In her new claims, Carroll maintains that Trump committed battery “when he forcibly raped and groped her” and that he defamed her when he denied raping her last month.
Trump said in his statement that Carroll “completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.”
