Former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll filed an upgraded lawsuit against former President Donald Trump on Thanksgiving, the first day of New York’s new Adult Survivors Act, the Associated Press reports. The one-year lookback window enables survivors of sexual offenses that occurred when they were over the age of 18 to sue regardless of the statute of limitations.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, filed the legal paper electronically minutes after a new state law took effect and temporarily lifted New York’s deadlines for suing over sexual assault. Carroll sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering, psychological harms, dignity loss and reputation damage.
In 2019, Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a department store in New York City. She made the allegation in her 2019 book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal and claimed Trump threw her against a wall, pulled down her tights, and forced himself on her.
Trump denied the allegations, said Carroll was “totally lying” and commented on her appearance. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type,” Trump told The Hill. “Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?”
Carroll sued Trump for defamation in federal court that November. The former president argued that he was shielded from the lawsuit by a federal law that provides immunity to government employees from defamation claims. Judge...
Welcome to Reality Check, NewsGuard’s nonpartisan newsletter that tracks the false claims and conspiracy theories that shape our world — and who’s behind them. Please support us by becoming a premi...