Writer E. Jean Carroll leaves a Manhattan courthouse after a jury found former President Donald Trump guilty of sexually assaulting her at a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, New York City, May 9, 2023.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
A federal judge on Tuesday granted writer E. Jean Carroll modification request her original defamation suit against the former president Donald Trump include comments he made about her in a CNN town hall last month.
The order by Judge Lewis Kaplan of U.S. District Court in Manhattan is a blow to Trump, who asked the court to reject Carroll’s effort to update her lawsuit, which now seeks at least $10 million in damages.
The judge’s decision was released shortly after Trump he pleaded not guilty to federal felony charges in the historic Miami indictment.
“We look forward to proceeding expeditiously with E. Jean Carroll’s remaining claims,” Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said in a statement to CNBC after the latest order Tuesday afternoon.
Alina Habba, Trump’s attorney, said in a statement to NBC News: “We argue that she should not be allowed to retroactively change her legal theory at the eleventh hour to avoid the consequences of an adverse finding against her.”
Carroll attempted to amend her lawsuit shortly after Trump launched a barrage of disparaging remarks about her during the living town hall on CNN on May 10.
“What kind of woman meets someone and brings them up and within minutes you’re playing in the locker room, OK?” Trump said during the event. “I swear on my kids, which I never do, I have no idea who this woman is. This is a fake story, a made up story.”
That much criticized the town hall came a day after a jury found for Trump in a separate civil case responsible for sexual abuse and defamation against Carroll and ordered him to pay her $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The writer accused the former president of raping her in a department store in the mid-1990s and then defaming her after she came forward with her allegations in 2019. She filed a civil defamation suit against him in 2019 and then filed a second civil lawsuit against him in 2022 that also included a battery charge.
Less than two weeks after the CNN town hall, Carroll’s lawyers asked Judge Kaplan to let her amend her original civil complaint to include Trump’s latest comments, arguing that “the facts and circumstances have changed.”
Trump has denied raping Carroll. He moved to appeal verdict in Carroll’s second case.