A judge ruled on Tuesday that E. Jean Carroll, the columnist who won $5 million in damages in a civil lawsuit she filed against former President Donald Trump in 2022, may amend a separate, pending 2019 defamation lawsuit against Trump to seek more damages.
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan approved the request to amend the 2019 lawsuit, which now seeks at least $10 million in damages against Trump, CNBC reported.
A trial for the lawsuit is still pending as the courts weigh whether Trump can be sued as an individual for comments he made while he was still president in 2019.
Carroll requested an amendment to the lawsuit last month after Trump — whose lawyers tried to block the amendment — made inflammatory remarks about her at a CNN Town Hall event a day after the verdict in her 2022 civil case came out.
In that second 2022 lawsuit, Carroll alleged that Trump had raped her in a luxury department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s. Last month, the jury found him liable for sexual abuse and ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million.
The next day, Trump verbally attacked and mocked Carroll, denied any wrongdoing and claimed that he didn’t know her, despite photographic evidence to the contrary. Trump also repeatedly denied knowing Carroll throughout the trial, which he did not attend.
“I have no idea who the hell [this is],” Trump said at the town hall event. “She’s a whack job.”
Trump’s legal woes are mounting with the amended lawsuit.
Following his indictment last week, the former president was arraigned in Miami on Tuesday, where he pleaded not guilty to 37 federal felony charges for his alleged mishandling of classified documents at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.
Trump was previously indicted and arraigned in March over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleged the two had an affair, prior to the 2016 election. Trump also faces probes into his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia. A decision on whether to charge Trump as a result of the Georgia investigation is expected to arrive in the upcoming months, according to the Fulton County district attorney.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
