Judge blocks Trump's countersuit against rape accuser
Former US President has claimed that his rape accuser's defamation suit against him was "illegal" because it violated a New York state law intended to protect free speech.
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Judge strikes down Trump's countersuit in defamation legal battle with rape accuser.
Former US President Trump's rape accuser claimed he assaulted her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York in the 1990s. However, he rejected the allegation in 2019 when the claim was published in New York Magazine. He called the woman a "liar" and claimed she was leading a defamation lawsuit against him.
Manhattan's federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan hit Donald Trump's attempt to countersue the accuser, writer E. Jean Carroll. Kaplan revealed that Trump's countersuit had the only goal of delaying the defamation lawsuit that Carroll filed against Trump.
Carroll secured a legal battle after Trump called her a "liar" for accusing him of rape in New York's Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s.
Kaplan noted that approving Trump's countersuit bid would open "new avenues for significant further delay" in a case that has already been open for around three years.
"The record convinces this court that the defendant's litigation tactics, whatever their intent, have delayed the case to an extent that readily could have been far less", the judge said according to court filings.
Trump's earlier legal actions, he believed, were "dilatory, in bad faith, or unreasonably prejudiced" all at the same time. The matter "might have been tried and determined long ago," the judge remarked.
The writer's defamation lawsuit was apparently placed on hold as a result of Trump's attempt to countersue her. It's unclear if the case can now proceed and whether Trump's legal team would appeal Judge Kaplan's judgment.
The ex-President's legal team argued that the defamation lawsuit should be dismissed since it was filed in 2019, while Trump was still in office. That year, New York Magazine published portions from E. Jean Carroll's planned book "What Do We Need Men For A Modest Proposal?" - including the part in which she accused Trump of raping her. At the same time, a photograph of Trump and Carroll from 1987 was published in the magazine.
