Judge rejects Trump’s call for new trial in rape case

A federal judge in Manhattan rejected this Wednesday the request of the former president of the United States, Donald Trump (2017-2021), for a new trial or a review of the compensation for damages in the case of sexual abuse of the journalist and writer E. Jean Carroll, which was resolved with a sanction of $5 million in favor of the victim.

Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the former president’s motion, ruling that “the jury, in this case, did not reach “a seriously erroneous result’” and that it was resolved that way because there was abundant evidence.

Last year, in a lawsuit, Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a changing room of a department store in 1996, a case that was resolved on May 9, when the jury found him “responsible” (guilty according to the vocabulary in civil cases) of sexual abuse and defamation.

This year, the current candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential primaries asked for a new trial, claiming that the damages were excessive since the jury had stopped short of finding him responsible for rape.

Carroll has another open case, considering that Trump defamed her in 2019 and that damaged her reputation as a journalist.