Carroll could sue Trump again over new defamation
Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll consented Monday to Donald Trump’s bond application in his Manhattan defamation case, days after the former president once again apparently slandered the woman he was found liable for sexually assaulting.
Not 48 hours after informing the court he had secured the money for Carroll, the ex-president doubled down on his defamatory statements at a weekend rally in Rome, Ga.
“I just posted a $91 million bond, $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story,” Trump said, “based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn’t know, never heard of, I know nothing about her.”
Trump added of the 80-year-old Carroll: “This woman is not a believable person.”
Asked if Carroll plans to bring more legal action in response to Trump’s latest remarks, her lawyer noted she has time to decide.
“The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years. As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll,” Roberta Kaplan said in a statement to the Daily News.
Trump informed Manhattan Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan on Friday that had secured a bond for $91.6 million from Federal Insurance Co., in addition to filing a notice of appeal of the jury’s January findings that Trump owed Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her while he was president when he denied her rape allegations.
The money will remain in a court-controlled account until Trump has exhausted his appeals.
The damages a jury awarded Carroll in January added to the $5 million that another jury awarded her last May after determining Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and defamed her as a “complete con job” on Truth Social following his presidency.
Judge Kaplan found Trump liable for defaming Carroll when he was president not long after the May verdict.
During emotional testimony at last year’s trial, Carroll described Trump violently assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman changing room after they ran into each other and he invited her to go shopping.
Trump continued to defame Carroll after the sexual assault verdict, disparaging the former Elle columnist as a “wack job” in a CNN town hall just a day after he was found liable for the defamation.
In response to those remarks, Carroll added another claim in a second lawsuit, in addition to the mammoth damages returned in January.
In his weekend remarks, Trump also ridiculed Judge Kaplan as a “Democrat Trump-deranged judge” and the judge on his fraud case, Arthur Engoron, as a “whackedout judge.”
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
The GOP front-runner for president is required to deposit an additional half-billion dollars by the end of the month in his civil fraud case. He has until around March 25 — the day his hush money trial starts in Manhattan — to deposit more than $454 million awarded to state Attorney General Letitia James.