(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Monday denied former President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to delay the trial in the defamation and battery case brought by former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll.
Carroll sued Trump in November, alleging he defamed her by calling her a liar when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.
Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s allegations.
Trump sought a one-month delay of the trial, slated to begin on April 25, arguing a “cooling off” period was necessary following intense media coverage of his criminal indictment in Manhattan last month in connection with an alleged hush money payment to an adult film actress.
The judge called the suggestion that the coverage could preclude the selection of a fair jury “pure speculation.”
“There is no justification for an adjournment,” Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled. “This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution.”
The judge included a pointed reminder that the postponement Trump sought may be a mixed blessing.
“Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse,” Kaplan wrote in this decision, noting the multiple criminal and investigations Trump faces.
“Developments in at least one of these matters, as well as actions and statements by Mr. Trump in relation to any, may well give rise to intense publicity that, in some respects, Mr. Trump might claim to be prejudicial in this case,” the judge said. “Mr. Trump’s suggestion that a one-month trial postponement in this case would ensure the absence of any such developments in the period immediately preceding jury selection is not realistic.”
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