A federal judge on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit claiming the former president defamed E. Jean Carroll by denying her allegation that he raped her in the mid-1990s, Reuters reports.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed the former president’s assertion that as president he had absolute immunity.
A Manhattan jury last month awarded E. Jean Carroll $5 million in damages for sexual abuse and defamation. Carroll has a second defamation case also working its way through the courts, which is the one Trump challenged.
Trump is appealing last month's verdict.
Carroll in June 2019 alleged the former president attacked her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. Trump said he didn’t know her and she wasn’t his "type."
Trump on Tuesday countersued Carroll alleging she defamed him in a CNN interview a day after the verdict when asked about the jury’s finding that didn’t find that Trump raped her. She said, "oh yes he did, oh yes he did."
Carroll is seeking at least $10 million in damages in the original lawsuit, which is scheduled to go before a jury starting Jan. 15, 2024.
