Writer E. Jean Carroll files new lawsuit against Trump

E. Jean Carroll speaks onstage during the How to Write Your Own Life panel at the 2019 Glamour Women Of The Year Summit at Alice Tully Hall on November 10, 2019 in New York City.

(Image credit: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Glamour)

E. Jean Carroll, the former magazine columnist who accused former President Donald Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, on Thursday filed a second lawsuit against Trump for battery and defamation.

The filing arrived just minutes after a new New York state law — the Adult Survivors Act — went into effect. The law allows adult victims a one-year window to file a claim regarding a sexual assault incident that may have occurred years ago. Carroll was previously unable to sue over the alleged rape because too many years had passed, The Associated Press reports; she instead sued Trump for defamation after he denied the allegations, saying Carroll was "not my type."

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Carroll is requesting compensatory, punitive, and exemplary damages, and is also asking a judge to order Trump to retract the defamatory statements.

In his recent statement, Trump said Carroll "completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City department store and, within minutes, 'swooned' her. It is a hoax and a lie, just like all the other hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years."

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Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.