Minutes after a new New York State law took effect allowing victims of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago, US writer E Jean Carroll, who previously accused former US President Donald Trump of rape, filed a second lawsuit against Trump, accusing him of battery.
Under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, sexual assault victims have been offered a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers, even if statutes of limitations have expired because the abuse occurred long ago.
Previous state law was barring Carroll from suing Trump over the alleged rape because too many years had passed since the incident.
Carroll seeks in her complaint unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for pain and suffering, psychological harm, loss of dignity, and damage to her reputation inflicted by the former US president.
In her complaint filed in a New York City federal court, Carroll cited an October post on Trump’s Truth Social platform where he denied the alleged rape to accuse Trump of defamation as well as of battery, which happened when he forcibly groped and raped her.
According to the allegations Carroll first made in her 2019 book, Trump allegedly raped her in 1995 or 1996 in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store.
Trump first denied raping the longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine at the time she raised the allegations, pointing out that Carroll was not his type, after which she sued him for defamation.
That lawsuit ended up being tied up in appeals courts where judges have to decide if Trump is protected from legal claims for comments made while he was sitting president.
In his second denial of the rape made in a post on his Truth Social account on October 12, Trump prompted another defamation claim calling Carroll’s claims a hoax and lies, arguing she completely made up the story.
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