Author and columnist E Jean Carroll is going back to court to demand “very substantial” additional damages from Donald Trump for the disparaging remarks he made about her during a televised CNN town hall just a day after he was found liable in a civil case for sexually assaulting her.
An amended lawsuit seeking an additional $10m in compensatory damages – and more in punitive damages – was filed in Manhattan on Monday by lawyers for Carroll, who say remarks made by the former president in response to her rape allegations have so spoiled her reputation that she lost her longtime job as an Elle magazine advice columnist.
On 9 May, a New York jury ruled that Trump had sexually abused the advice columnist in a New York department store changing room 27 years ago. It also awarded about $5m in compensatory and punitive damages: about $2m on the sexual abuse count and close to $3m for defamation, for branding her a liar.
The following night, during a live town hall where Trump was interviewed on CNN in New Hampshire, Trump further and repeatedly insulted and demeaned Carroll and her experiences.
Trump said her account of a sexual assault, in the case which he is appealing, was “fake” and a “made-up story” and referred to it as “hanky-panky”. He repeated past claims that he’d never met Carroll and considered her a “whack job.”
Carroll’s new filing aims to inflict a further financial penalty against Trump for those remarks, claiming they are defamatory.
Lawyers for Carroll said that Trump had “doubled down” on derogatory remarks about her a day after the verdict.
The filing claimed Trump’s statements at the televised town hall “show the depth of his malice toward Carroll, since it is hard to imagine defamatory conduct that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill will or spite” and demanded “a very substantial punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation and to deter others from doing the same.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, told the New York Times on Monday evening that Trump’s remarks on CNN “makes a mockery of the jury verdict and our justice system” if the former president was allowed to get away with repeating defamatory statements.
Carroll, who testified during the trial, first revealed in a 2019 book her claims that Trump raped her in a dressing room. The jury decided Carroll hadn’t proved she had been raped, but found that Trump had sexually abused her.
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Speaking after the verdict earlier this month, Carroll, 79, said her case was “not about the money” and that the outcome broke down barriers for women and “demolished” the myth of the “perfect victim”.
“Before yesterday there was a concept of the perfect victim,” Carroll said. “The perfect victim always screams, always reports to the police, always makes note when it happened and then her life is supposed to … fold up and she’s never sort of supposed to be happy again.
“And yesterday we demolished that whole concept. It is gone. It is gone. And I am overwhelmed with happiness for the women of the country. It’s really not about me so much. It’s about every woman.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
