A New York judge on Wednesday rejected a request by former US President Donald Trump to postpone his testimony, scheduled for next week, in a defamation case against a former journalist who accused him of rape in the 1990s, a court document says.
In this case, E. Jean Carroll, known for having been a columnist for the magazine Shehad attacked Donald Trump civilly in November 2019 in a New York State court.
in the 1990s
She accused him of defaming her for calling her allegations in June 2019 a “complete lie” that he raped her in a New York department store fitting room in the mid-1990s.
The Republican president, then in office, had claimed that he had never met her and that she was “not his type of woman”.
The complaint has been delayed by procedural battles, including whether Donald Trump should be represented by the US government in the case as president at the time.
Trump attacked the procedure
For Judge Lewis Kaplan, the issue is not definitively resolved, but he cannot delay the case any longer, and the statements of E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump, scheduled respectively for Friday and next Wednesday, in particular due to the “age advanced” of the parties, 78 for the complainant, 76 for Donald Trump.
“As this court has already noted, Mr. Trump has attacked these proceedings since they began in 2019, with the effect and likely goal of delaying them,” Judge Kaplan said.
The magistrate also points out in his decision the intention of the former journalist to claim damages from the former US president himself for the alleged violation, when a new New York State law comes into force that allows filing a civil complaint without taking into account the deadlines for prescription. This law, called the “Adult Survivors Law,” will go into effect on November 24.
Source: BFM TV
