Writer E. Jean Carroll on Monday asked a judge to update his still-ongoing initial defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump to add a new complaint after he called it a “wacky job” during his town hall on CNN earlier this month.
In a filing late Monday, Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said her client would seek “very substantial punitive compensation” for Trump’s remarks.
Trump made the comments a day after a jury in federal court in New York found Trump responsible for sexually abusing Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and then defaming her for allegedly slandering her. qualified as fraud. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
Trump complained about the verdict on his Truth Social social media platform shortly after, and launched a tirade on Carroll at a CNN town hall the following night, the amended complaint proposal filed by the notes of Carroll’s attorney.
Asked about his reaction to CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins’ verdict, Trump responded “by repeating many of the same defamatory statements for which the jury had just found him responsible the day before,” the filing said.
“During the exchange, Trump falsely stated that he had not sexually abused Carroll, that he had no idea who Carroll was, and that Carroll’s now-proven accusation was a ‘false’ and” fabricated story “created by ‘outlandish labor,'” among other insults, according to the filing.
“This conduct warrants an award of very substantial punitive damages to Carroll both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further libel, and to deter others from doing the same,” he said. declared.
The amended lawsuit seeks a total of at least $10 million in compensatory damages for its defamation claims and “additional punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial.”
Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, said in a statement to NBC News that “Ms. Carroll’s eleventh-hour attempt to amend her complaint reveals the true motivation behind her numerous lawsuits.
The new lawsuit didn’t stop Trump from bashing Carroll again on Truth Social early Tuesday morning. In a pair of posts, he complained about her “Fake, Made Up Story” and said “THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED, THIS IS A TOTAL SCAM, UNFAIR TRIAL!”
Trump waived his right to testify in the civil trial earlier this month, but jurors saw his videotaped deposition testimony from October, where he denied Carroll’s account and insulted her at many times. The civil case, which went to trial last month, was actually Carroll’s second lawsuit against Trump. She first alleged that he defamed her by calling her a liar after she initially went public with her claim in 2019, when he was still president.
That case was stalled on appeal over questions about whether Trump could be held accountable for comments he made while president.
A Washington appeals court sent the case back to New York for retrial, and it is pending again before U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the recent trial.
Trump filed a notice saying he is appealing the $5 million verdict.