Trump Seeks New Trial in E. Jean Carroll Sexual Assault Case

Former U.S. President Donald Trump requested a new trial on Thursday in the civil lawsuit brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, in which a Manhattan jury found him guilty of sexual assault and defamation last month, awarding her $5 million in damages. Trump's lawyers, in a document filed with federal court in Manhattan, described the $2 million award determined by the jury for the sexual assault claim as "excessive" because the jury found that Carroll was not raped and that the behavior she claimed to have experienced was not proven to have caused her any psychological harm. They added that the $2.7 million award in the defamation case "was based on mere speculation." Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, stated in a statement that Trump's defenses are "weak." Trump, the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 presidential campaign, denied the allegations and appealed the verdict. The lawsuit filed by Carroll in 2022 claimed that Trump raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in New York in the mid-1990s and defamed her by denying the occurrence of the incident. Trump described Carroll’s allegations as "false."