A New York judge denied a motion to dismiss an advice columnist’s lawsuit alleging Donald Trump raped her decades ago.
Friday’s decision by New York’s Southern District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan allows E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuits to proceed to trial. In one suit, she seeks damages for the alleged rape she claims occurred in the upscale department store Bergdorf Goodman.
The assault that Carroll claims occurred around 1995 or 1996 was time-barred by New York’s statute of limitations. The state, however, passed the Adult Survivors Act that allows adult survivors of sexual assaults a one-year reach back period to pursue legal action against alleged assailants.
Also proceeding to trial is a defamation case Carroll brought after Trump made what she called libelous comments about her in October 2022.
Trump’s legal team argued the ASA is contrary to the Due Process Clause of New York’s Constitution. Judge Kaplan rejected that argument.
“[T]he New York Court of Appeals recently made clear that the test for whether a claim-revival statute is consistent with the New York Due Process Clause is simply whether the revival statute is ‘a reasonable measure to address an injustice,’” the judge explained in his 28-page decision. “The answer is obvious.”
Kaplan cited legislative sponsors who opined people denied justice by New York’s formerly insufficient statutes of limitations should be given the opportunity to seek civil redress against their abuser in court.
“A bare nine minutes after the ASA became effective on Thanksgiving morning, Ms. Carroll brought the present lawsuit – Carroll II – against Mr. Trump,” Kaplan wrote.
“Mr. Trump, then a private citizen, encountered Carroll at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan some time between the fall of 1995 and the spring of 1996,” according to court documents. The plaintiff was an advice columnist appearing on television at the time. She alleges that Trump recognized her and asked her to help him select a present for a woman who was not with him at the store.
The two reportedly went to the store’s lingerie department, where, according to the complaint, Trump insisted the plaintiff try on a body suit. Carroll next alleges that, after what she first considered playful banter, Trump closed the dressing room door, pushed her against a wall and began kissing her without her consent.
Carroll claims in her complaint that he then pressed her against the wall again. At that point, she alleges Trump pulled down her tights and forcibly raped her for several minutes until she managed to push him off and run from the store.
The former president denies any memory of Carroll, denies raping her and has opined her charges stem from her desire to pump up sales of a book she wrote.
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