An American journalist, E. Jean Carroll, who accuses Donald Trump of having raped her in the 1990s, relaunched her civil lawsuit against the former President of the United States on Thursday, November 24, thanks to a new law in New York which protects victims of sexual assault.
A double court case of alleged rape and defamation has pitted Ms. Carroll, 78, against Donald Trump, 76, in Manhattan federal civil court since 2019, both of whom produced their sworn depositions in October before a new judge. -yorkers.
Protected by head of state immunity
In the defamation proceedings, E. Jean Carroll, author and former columnist for Elle magazine, sued Donald Trump in civil proceedings in November 2019. She accused him of defaming her for calling her a “complete lie”, in June 2019, his allegations of rape in a New York department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996.
The Republican president then in office (2017-2021) replied that he had never met her and that she was not “not his kind of woman”. His lawyers have also always claimed that he was protected in 2019 by his immunity as head of state.
As for the rape charges, Ms. Carroll had not been able to file a formal complaint in 2019 since the alleged facts were time-barred. Survivors Act”) allowing, for one year, victims of sexual assault to reactivate their possible old complaints and claim a civil lawsuit.
“Tacked and stuck”
The law firm of E. John Carroll, and the federal justice of Manhattan therefore released several court documents on Thursday accusing Donald Trump in particular of “rape” and requesting a civil trial in 2023 in order to obtain damages.
In the introduction to the complaint, which is now admissible and which relates all the facts, Donald Trump is accused “about 27 years ago (…) in the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York (of) grabbing E. Jean Carroll, slamming her and pinning her against the wall a fitting room with her shoulder and raping her”.
The complainant had been silent for more than 20 years before telling her story in a book at the end of the 2010s in favor of the #MeToo movement launched in 2017 against violence against women.
“While I respect and admire the people who speak up, this case unfortunately constitutes a diversion of the objective of the law which sets a serious precedent and risks delegitimizing the words of real victims” reacted Thursday to AFP Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s lawyer in the case.
