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On Monday, May 22, Carroll asked a Manhattan federal court to award her a “very substantial” additional amount of damages in her civil sexual abuse and defamation case against Trump, CNN reports.
According to the outlet, the move is in direct response to Trump’s appearance at a CNN town hall on May 10, in which he continued to deny Carroll’s claims that he sexually abused her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s, calling the allegation “fake” and “made up.”
He also denied ever meeting Carroll, calling her a “whack job” and decrying the trial as a “rigged deal.”
The former president’s comments came one day after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and awarded Carroll nearly $5 million in total damages.
Monday’s court filing argues that Trump’s statements after the verdict “show the depth of his malice toward Carroll, since it is hard to imagine defamatory conduct that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill will or spite,” according to CNN.
“This conduct supports a very substantial punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same,” the filing continues.
The filing asks to revise another defamation lawsuit filed by Carroll in 2019 to include the jury’s verdict against Trump, as well as his comments on CNN, the outlet reports.
Carroll, now age 79 and living in the Hudson Valley, in Orange County, made headlines in June 2019 when she claimed in a cover story for New York Magazine that Trump raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s.
Trump repeatedly denied the allegations, saying he never met Carroll and that she is “totally lying” to sell her memoir and is “not my type.”
Those comments, made in 2019 while Trump was president, prompted Carroll to sue him for defamation under a temporary law that gives victims of sexual abuse a one-year window to file a civil claim, even if it occurred decades ago.
The former president did not attend the trial.
In an all-caps statement on Truth Social following the verdict, Trump denied knowing who Carroll is, and called the verdict a "disgrace," saying it was "a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time."
In another post made hours before the verdict, Trump said he planned to appeal his "unconstitutional silencing," claiming he was "not allowed to speak or defend myself," despite having the opportunity to testify during the trial.
Click here for the full story from CNN.
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