Lawyer: Carroll could again sue Trump for latest attacks
Three days after former President Donald Trump posted a $91.6 million bond in the defamation case he lost recently to writer E. Jean Carroll, her lawyer on Monday suggested she was considering filing yet another defamation lawsuit against him.
The lawyer raised the prospect of a new lawsuit after Trump in recent days repeatedly lashed out at Carroll, using the same kind of disparaging language that led to the huge judgment against him in January.
“The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, said in a statement Monday. “As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client.”
In a separate court filing, Kaplan told the federal judge overseeing the case that she and Trump’s lawyers had reached an agreement on the details of his proposed $91.6 million bond. The bond — provided by Federal Insurance Co., an arm of the insurance giant Chubb — will prevent Carroll from collecting her multimillion-dollar judgment while Trump appeals the defamation verdict.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, must still approve the proposed bond.
The race to secure the bond before Monday’s deadline came as Trump was on the clock to obtain a bond for another huge judgment in a civil fraud case brought by the N.Y. attorney general’s office. In that case, Trump must post a nearly $500 million bond by March 25 or the attorney general can begin seizing his assets while he appeals.
Trump lacks the cash to
come up with both bonds at once, placing him in financial peril at an already hectic time. Trump also faces four criminal indictments — with the trial in the first case beginning in Manhattan in two weeks — all while he is on the cusp of becoming the Republican presidential nominee for the third time.
Although the former president boasts of his billions, his net worth is derived largely from the value of his real estate. He has more than $350 million in cash, a recent New York Times analysis found, far short of what he needs to obtain bonds in both cases.
An appeal bond is a promise from the company offering it to cover a judgment if a defendant — in this case, Trump — loses an appeal and fails to pay. In exchange, Trump must pay the company a premium and pledge collateral, including as much cash as possible.
Trump twice has attacked Carroll in recent days, using the kind of language that has led to two defamation findings against him, most recently a jury’s $83.3 million award in January.
On Saturday at a rally in Rome, Georgia, Trump complained about the bond he had to post, insisted Carroll’s accusations were false and said that she was “not a believable person.”
Trump doubled down
on those remarks Monday morning during a telephone interview with CNBC, mocking Carroll as “Miss Bergdorf Goodman,” a reference to the department store in Manhattan where she said he had sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s. In the interview, Trump called the decisions against him “ridiculous.”
“I got charged — I was given a false accusation and had to post a $91 million bond on a false accusation,” said Trump, who was not charged criminally in the case.
In the criminal hushmoney trial set to begin in two weeks, the former president’s lawyers on Monday, asked Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan to adjourn the case indefinitely until Trump’s immunity claim in his Washington, D.C., election interference case is resolved. Merchan did not immediately rule.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments April 25, a month after the scheduled start of jury selection in the New York case.
Trump contends he is immune for prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.