E. Jean Carroll, former U.S. President Donald Trump rape accuser, arrives at Manhattan Federal Court for the continuation of the civil case, in New York City, May 9, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that Donald Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about the writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 when she went public with claims he had raped her decades earlier.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, as part of that ruling granting Carroll a partial summary judgment, said the upcoming trial for her civil lawsuit against Trump will only deal with the question of how much the former president should pay her in monetary damages.
The 25-page decision in U.S. District Court in Manhattan is the latest big loss for Trump in suits filed by Carroll.
In May, a jury in the same court for a related lawsuit found that Trump had sexually abused Carroll during an encounter in a New York department store in the mid-1990s, and had defamed her last fall in comments that again denied her allegations.
Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages in that case, which related to comments he made after he was president.
The suit that was the subject of Kaplan’s ruling Wednesday relates to statements about Carroll that Trump made when he was president as he denied her claim of rape.
Trial in the case is set to begin on Jan. 15.
Lawyers for Trump and Carroll did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Kaplan’s ruling.
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