Former U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a motion in federal court to dismiss the sexual assault complaint against him filed by journalist Elizabeth Jean Carroll based on a new New York law that he believes is unconstitutional.
According to former President Trump’s defense, the law on which the complaint is based conflicts with the due process protections of New York state law and further argues that Carroll’s lawsuit is «baseless and legally flawed,» CNN reports.
The rule it refers to went into effect on Nov. 24, the same day Carroll filed a sexual assault complaint for an alleged act that took place in the 1990s in the fitting rooms of a New York store. The law gives adult survivors of sex crimes up to one year to file lawsuits against their alleged offenders, even if the statute of limitations has expired.
This is not the first lawsuit Carroll has filed against Trump, as there is already one pending from 2019 in a Manhattan court accusing him of defamation, after the former president not only denied these facts, but also tried to ridicule her when he said she was a «liar» and that she was not his type.
For this defamation lawsuit Trump already declared in October asserting that it is nothing more than «a witch hunt» against him, as well as a publicity strategy of Carroll to sell more copies of his book ‘Why do we need men’, in which he recounts that episode.
Carroll claims that about 27 years ago some jokes between her and Trump about trying on lingerie when they coincided in a luxury department store on Fifth Avenue in New York «took a dark turn» when he «forced her against the wall of the fitting room, pinned her down and raped her».
Trump has managed to delay the defamation suit on several occasions thanks to his time in the White House, as he argued that the president of the United States cannot be sued in the performance of his duties if the facts have to do with his office. In September, a federal appeals court ruled partially in his favor, finding that he was under legal protection.
However, that same court asked its highest court, the District of Columbia court, to decide whether those comments were protected. Carroll’s new lawsuit is also based on statements made by Trump a month ago and which are similar to those made then, so he would not be able to avail himself of this legal protection since he is no longer president of the United States.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
