Judge Delays Unsealing Trump Deposition in Rape Accuser’s Suit

Patricia Hurtado
·2 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- A federal judge gave former President Donald Trump more time to argue against the partial release of his deposition in a lawsuit by a woman who claims he raped her in the 1990s.

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US District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday initially ordered the unsealing of 34 pages of Trump’s testimony in a defamation suit by New York writer E. Jean Carroll. Hours later, Kaplan granted a request by Trump to delay the release for three days while they file a formal objection.

Carroll sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he publicly denied her claim that he raped her. She had filed excerpts of both her deposition and Trump’s in support of arguments to expedite evidence-gathering in the case.

While Carroll submitted Trump’s testimony under seal, Kaplan initially said the former president had failed to respond within a required three-day period to explain why it should remain sealed. In a letter to the court requesting a delay, the former president’s lawyers said they misunderstood their obligation to respond.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for Trump, didn’t return an email seeking comment.

Carroll alleges the former president raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room two decades ago. In her 2019 suit, she said he defamed her by claiming he never met the writer and that she made up the story to boost sales of her book. She filed another suit in November under a new New York law allowing victims to sue over alleged sexual abuse that occurred decades earlier.

A partial transcript of Carroll’s deposition was unsealed in November in which Trump’s lawyers pressed her on her love life and how she responded during the alleged attack.

--With assistance from Erik Larson.

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