Summer Zervos Says Classified Trump Organization Documents Confirm ‘Apprentice’ Alumna’s Sexual Assault Claims; Defense’s Motion For Stay Is Denied – Update

Patrick Hipes

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UPDATED, 5:25 PM: The New York Supreme Court has denied a motion to delay the case of Summer Zervos v. Donald Trump, the defamation suit filed against the president of the United States by a former contestant on The Apprentice, the NBC reality show POTUS once fronted. Trump’s attorneys had argued that “a stay is necessary given the novel and important Constitutional issues involved, the special considerations due to the President’s requests for interlocutory appeals and to prevent irreparable harm.” Justice Jennifer Schetcer disagreed. Read her response here and details of the case below.

PREVIOUSLY, October 24: Attorneys for former The Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos, whose defamation suit against President Donald Trump is in the discovery phase, have filed a motion with the New York state Supreme Court requesting that a judge de-designate additional confidential documents from the Trump Organization that they say could help prove Trump sexually assaulted Zervos in 2007.

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In a memorandum of law filed Thursday (read it here), the plaintiff’s side said that most of the Trump Organization’s documents produced in discovery originally were classified as confidential. While behind-the-scenes wrangling has lifted that designation for many of those docs — some relating to Trump’s schedule and whereabouts during that time period — “there is one critical piece that they insist on keeping secret,” according to the filing.

“Defendant evidently is aware that the documents at issue closely corroborate Plaintiff’s detailed account of their interactions,” said the memorandum, some of which was redacted, about nine pages of documents in question. “That is not a valid reason for Defendant to use the Confidentiality Stipulation to continue to conceal the truth.”

Zervos’ lawyers said the Trump Organization designated it as confidential because it included Trump’s private cell phone number, a reason they refute since it is no longer in use and Trump “himself publicized it to his millions of Twitter followers during the 2016 campaign.”

In March, a New York appeals court ruled that Trump must face the defamation suit, which was filed after he claimed publicly that Zervos and other women who have accused him of sexual misconduct were lying. The ruling means that Trump might have to give a deposition in the case.

A contestant on Season 5 of the Trump-hosted NBC series The Apprentice, Zervos just before the 2016 election accused then-GOP presidential candidate Trump of grabbing her breasts and kissing her in 2007 in a bungalow at Beverly Hills Hotel, where she’d gone to talk to him about a job.

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