E. Jean Carroll has asked a judge to amend her initial defamation case against former President Donald Trump to seek additional punitive damages after he repeated his statements at a CNN town hall.
The request was made in a letter to the judge seeking clarity on the initial lawsuit following a civil jury verdict earlier this month finding Trump sexually abused Carroll and awarding her $5 million.
Carroll’s attorneys said Trump’s defamatory statements repeated during the town hall earlier this month go directly to the issue of punitive damages, which are intended to punish the person found liable.
Carroll’s initial lawsuit was held up on appeal and relates to statements Trump made in 2019 while he was president. The trial involved a statement Trump made in 2022.
An appeals court sent the initial lawsuit back to the lower court judge just before the trial. It is up to the judge to determine whether it moves forward.
Carroll has alleged that the former president raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book.
Trump denied all claims brought against him by Carroll and appealed the jury’s judgment.
While the jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll, sufficient to hold him liable for battery, the jury did not find that she proved he raped her.
Trump was quick to jump on this aspect of the jury’s verdict at a CNN town hall hosted in New Hampshire the day after the jury came to its decision, saying “They said, ‘He didn’t rape her.’ And I didn’t do anything else either.”
“I have no idea who this woman – this is a fake story, made up story,” Trump said, calling Carroll a “whack job” and going on a tangent about her ex-husband and pet cat.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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