(Bloomberg) — Former President Donald Trump’s argument that a New York law allowing older sex-assault claims violated his constitutional rights was rejected by a judge as “absurd.”
(Bloomberg) — Former President Donald Trump’s argument that a New York law allowing older sex-assault claims violated his constitutional rights was rejected by a judge as “absurd.”
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan on Friday denied Trump’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed under the new law in November by former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleges Trump raped her more than two decades ago.
Trump was one of the first people sued under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily lifts the statute of limitations on sexual-assault claims. He argued the law violates the state constitution by depriving him of his due process rights.
The former president also claimed the state legislature failed to properly identify a specific injustice, as required when passing a law reviving once-outdated legal claims. Kaplan blasted that argument.
“To suggest that the ASA violates the state Due Process Clause because the legislature supposedly did not describe that injustice to the defendant’s entire satisfaction in a particular paragraph of a particular type of legislative document – itself a dubious premise – is absurd,” Kaplan said.
Carroll went public in 2019 with her claim that Trump raped her in the 1990s in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store. Trump, then president, publicly accused her of fabricating the attack to sell a book and said she wasn’t his “type.” Carroll responded by filing a defamation suit, which is set to go to trial in April if an ongoing appeal by the former president fails.
Carroll is seeking merge the new case with the earlier case before trial.
“While we are disappointed with the Court’s decision, we intend to immediately appeal the order and continue to advocate for our client’s constitutionally protected rights,” Trump’s attorney Alina Habba said in an emailed statement.
Read More: Trump Says He Maligned Rape Accuser to Maintain Americans’ Trust
The Adult Suvivors Act, which went into effect in November, lifts the statute of limitation for one year, opening the door for people to sue over alleged sexual assault or abuse that may have happened decades earlier. Trump and others have argued the law is unfair to defendants because evidence and witnesses may be too old to be reliable.
Kaplan’s ruling on Friday said Trump was incorrect to argue that the law was undermined by the ability of adult victims of abuse to file lawsuits much sooner.
“The elected branches of the New York State government have determined that many such victims are unable to do so, sometimes for long periods of time,” the judge said. “They are prevented by suppression of awful memories or deterred by fear and a ‘culture of silence’ – just as Ms. Carroll claims she was dissuaded from reporting or suing Mr. Trump.”
In her deposition, parts of which were made public in court filings, Carroll criticized the tendency of people to question why victims didn’t come forward sooner.
Kaplan also allowed Carroll to move ahead with a second defamation claim against Trump as part of her sexual-assault suit. That claim is based on an October social media post in which he repeated his denials and attacks on Carroll’s character.
“We are pleased though not surprised that Judge Kaplan denied Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss and upheld the constitutionality of New York’s Adult Survivors Act,” said Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge. “We look forward to trial in April.”
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, New York’s statute of limitations on sexual-assault claims was raised to 20 years from just one year in 2019, but the change wasn’t retroactive. The Adult Survivors Act was intended to fill the gap by creating a window for victims to file civil suits no matter how old their claims may be.
The case is Carroll v. Trump, 20-cv-07311, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
(Updates with detail from the judge’s ruling.)
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