Former President Donald Trump has asked for a delay in a defamation and sexual battery lawsuit brought by author E. Jean Carroll, citing the media coverage surrounding Trump’s indictment.
The trial is set to begin on April 25, but Trump’s lawyers said prospective jurors would have the recent indictment top of mind when judging the former president’s defense.
In their motion, Trump’s attorneys Alina Habba and Joe Tacopina wrote: “President Trump’s right to a fair trial depends upon a brief ‘cooling off’ period between the trial of this matter and the recent deluge of prejudicial media coverage concerning his unprecedented criminal indictment and arraignment in Manhattan.”
Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, becoming the first former U.S. president to be indicted. Carroll’s trial is set to take place down the street from where Trump was arraigned in Lower Manhattan.
Carroll has accused Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s at a New York department store. Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s claims.
She first filed a defamation lawsuit against the then-president in 2020 for statements he made about casting doubt on her claims and credibility. That case will likely turn on whether Trump’s statements were made within the scope of his employment as president, which would effectively protect him from the lawsuit.
In a second lawsuit, which is the one currently scheduled for trial this month, Carroll sues Trump over the alleged assault itself by leveraging a New York law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations.
