Roberta Kaplan. Photo: Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALMRoberta Kaplan Files Lawsuit Alleging Trump Defamed Author as Liar in Wake of Rape Accusation
The complaint describes President Donald Trump's response to an accusation of sexual assault dating back to the 1990s—according to the court papers, he implied she had accused other men of rape—as a calculated series of lies aimed at destroying author E. Jean Carroll's reputation.
November 04, 2019 at 02:51 PM
3 minute read
The original version of this story was published on New York Law Journal
Roberta Kaplan of Kaplan Hecker & Fink, a co-founder of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of author E. Jean Carroll in Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday, saying that after she accused President Donald Trump of a 1990s sexual assault, he defamed her.
The Time's Up Legal Defense Fund has raised more than $24 million to connect people experiencing workplace sexual harassment and retaliation with legal help and media assistance.
The legal defense fund rose out of the #MeToo movement, which also played a key role in Carroll's decision to come forward with her account of sexual assault, according to the complaint.
In her latest book, published this summer, Carroll wrote that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.
Trump has denied the accusation. He also denied knowing Carroll and implied she had falsely accused other men of rape, according to Carroll's lawsuit. The complaint describes this as a calculated series of lies aimed at destroying Carroll's reputation.
"After he lied about attacking her, he surrounded that central lie with a swarm of related lies in an effort to explain why she would invent an accusation of rape. To do so, he smeared her integrity, honesty, and dignity—all in the national press," Kaplan wrote in the complaint.
Carroll told two friends about the attack when it happened, but she did not come forward publicly because she believed Trump would "bury her in threats and lawsuits," according to the complaint.
"Carroll knew then that sexual assault was pervasive," Kaplan wrote in the complaint. "She also knew that men have been assaulting women and getting away with it since before she was born. And she knew that while a woman who accused any man of rape was rarely believed, a woman who accused a rich, famous, violent man of rape would probably lose everything."
Starting in late 2017, the women who accused Harvey Weinstein and other famous men of sexual harassment and assault helped shift Carroll's mind-set, according to the lawsuit. Weinstein's trial is expected to begin in 2020.
In a statement, Carroll said she's suing because so many women who are sexually assaulted and harassed cannot afford to do so. No one should be above the law, not even the president, she wrote.
"While I can no longer hold Donald Trump accountable for assaulting me more than twenty years ago, I can hold him accountable for lying about it and I fully intend to do so," Carroll wrote.
Trump's lawyers at Kasowitz Benson Torres did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kaplan is best known for successfully arguing in the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act.
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