After losing his defamation case against E. Jean Carroll after he sexually abused her, serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT), in his usual vindictive manner, turned around and countersued her for defamation because in her post-case interviews, she spoke of being raped by SSAT.
Yesterday the judge overseeing the case threw out SSAT’s case even without letting it go to trial. His opinion is interesting as he explains that although the jury in the defamation case brought by Carroll did not find SSAT guilty of rape, that was because of the narrow way that rape is defined in the New York Penal Code, which is different from the way that is popularly understood.
JUST IN: Trump's counterclaim against E. Jean Carroll has been *dismissed* by Judge Kaplan. https://t.co/BAUsk2lfdE pic.twitter.com/GdyVaZ0UoR
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 7, 2023
The judge further added:
Dismissing the counterclaim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were “substantially true”. Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll.
…“As the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr Trump’s motion for a new trial on damages and other relief [in the New York case] … based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury’s verdict as a whole, the jury’s finding that Mr Trump ‘sexually abused’ Ms Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally – in other words, that Mr Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York penal law.”
The next case brought by Carroll against SSAT goes to trial on January 15th, 2024.
Trial in the federal case is scheduled for 15 January, close to the start of the Republican primary as well as other court cases in which Trump is embroiled.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, said she was pleased with Judge Kaplan’s decision, and predicted the January trial “shouldn’t take very long to complete”.
Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, said: “We strongly disagree with the flawed decision and will be filing an appeal shortly.”
SSAT has had an unbroken streak of legal losses. When SSAT promised his followers that they would get tired of winning, he probably did not intend it to be ‘wins’ like this.
birgerjohansson says
(Purrs like a happy mountain lion) 😊