The columnist is seeking an additional $10m in damages after Trump doubled down on the frivolous claims.
E Jean Carroll, the columnist who won a $5m sexual abuse and defamation award against former US President Donald Trump, is seeking at least $10m more in a new court filing seeking to he will be responsible for what he said after the verdict.
An amended lawsuit seeking $10m in compensatory damages — and more in punitive damages — was filed Monday in Manhattan by Carroll’s lawyers, who said Trump’s comments were in response to his rape allegations so tarnished her reputation that she lost her longtime job as an advice columnist for Elle magazine.
In the rewritten lawsuit, they allege that he “doubled down” on derogatory comments about Carroll on a cable television appearance the day after the verdict.
“Trump’s defamatory statements after the verdict show the depth of his malice toward Carroll because it is difficult to imagine defamatory behavior that could have been motivated more by hatred, ill will or anger,” wrote the lawyer
“This conduct supports an extremely large punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same.”
A nine-person jury two weeks ago decided that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll at an upscale Manhattan department store in early spring 1996.
Carroll first revealed her claims that Trump raped her in a dressing room in a book in 2019. She testified about her experiences at trial, and while the jury decided that Carroll was not proven that she was raped, knowing that Trump had abused her.
Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for Trump, declined to comment on the new claims.
The lawyers filed the new claims by amending a defamation lawsuit that has been on hold while an appeals court decides whether Trump can be held accountable for comments he made in 2019 while he was still the president. The US Department of Justice supported his lawyers’ claims that the United States should be substituted as a defendant.
In the new claim, Carroll’s lawyers said Trump, “unfazed by the jury’s verdict, continued to maliciously denigrate Carroll again” the next day during a “town hall” event hosted by on CNN.
“He doubled down on his earlier defamatory statements, declaring to an audience so ready to cheer him on that ‘I’ve never met this woman. I have never seen this woman,’” the lawyers wrote. They pointed to Trump’s repeated denials about the alleged sexual assault and comments he made calling Carroll a “whack job” and his story a “fake”.
“Those statements resulted in enthusiastic cheers and applause from the live TV audience.”
