Trump Attorney Files for Mistrial In E. Jean Carroll Case, Alleging Court Misconduct
Donald Trump’s attorney Joseph Tacopina requested a mistrial Monday in former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll’s sexual battery and defamation lawsuit against the former president.
Carroll claimed in 2019 that Trump raped her in 1995 or 1996 in a dressing room at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store, and she sued him after he denied knowing her and called the case “a hoax and a lie.”
Tacopina sent a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan Monday accusing the court of misconduct — including mischaracterizing evidence in Carroll’s favor.
A one-time Bergdorf Goodman store manager testified that all of the store’s entrance and exit doors had surveillance cameras, but the court stopped Trump’s defense from questioning Carroll about whether she had tried to obtain such footage, suggesting that its existence was uncertain, according to Tacopina.
“Defendant maintains that Plaintiff did not seek footage of her alleged rape because no such alleged rape occurred,” Tacopina said. He also argued the court had expressed a corroborative view to the jury that no one was present on the store’s sixth floor when the rape allegedly occurred, despite this claim being disputed.
Carroll testified last week that she thought Trump had raped her on a Thursday, saying, “I wish to heaven we could give you a date,” Politico reported. Tacopina petitioned the court Monday for “greater latitude” to cross-examine Carroll and her witnesses if it refused to grant a mistrial.
“Despite the fact trial testimony has been underway for only two days, the proceedings are already replete with numerous examples of the Defendant’s unfair treatment by the Court, most of which have been witnessed by the jury,” Tacopina said.
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