Writer E. Jean Carroll on Monday asked a judge to update her still pending original defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump to add a new claim after he trashed her as a “whack job” during his CNN town hall earlier this month.
In a court filing late Monday, Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan said her client will be seeking a “very substantial punitive damages award” for Trump’s remarks.
Trump made the comments a day after a federal court jury in New York found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and then defaming her for calling her claims fraud. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
Trump complained about the verdict on his social media platform Truth Social shortly afterwards, and went on a tirade about Carroll during a CNN town hall the next night, the proposed amended complaint filed by Carroll’s attorney notes.
Asked about his reaction to the verdict by CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins, Trump responded “by repeating many of the same defamatory statements for which the jury had just found him liable the day before,” the filing said.
“During the exchange, Trump falsely stated that he did not sexually abuse Carroll, that he has no idea who Carroll was, and that Carroll’s now-proven accusation was a ‘fake’ and ‘made up story’ created by a ‘whack job,'” among other insults, according to the filing.
“This conduct supports a very substantial punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same,” it said.
The amended suit seeks a total of at least $10 million in compensatory damages for her defamation claims and additional “punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial.”
Trump lawyer Alina Habba said in a statement to NBC News that “Ms. Carroll’s eleventh hour attempt to amend her complaint exposes the true motivation behind her numerous lawsuits.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The civil case, which went to trial last month, was actually Carroll’s second lawsuit against Trump. Her first alleged that he defamed her by calling her a liar after she initially went with public with her claim in 2019, while he was still president.
That case was tied up on appeal over issues relating to whether Trump could be held liable for comments he made while president.
A Washington appeals court sent the case back to New York for further proceedings, and it’s again pending before U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the recent trial.
Trump has filed notice that he’s appealing the $5 million verdict.
