Judge denies Trump bid to delay trial over E. Jean Carroll rape allegation

Former President Trump’s trial in a case for alleged rape and libel is set to begin next week after a judge on Monday rejected Trump’s request for a one-month delay of the proceedings.

The civil trial stemming from author E. Jean Carroll’s allegation that Trump raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s will begin as scheduled on April 25. Trump has denied that the rape ever happened.

The judge denied an argument by Trump lawyers that a one-month delay in the trial was needed after the former president was indicted by a New York grand jury on felony charges of falsifying business records, saying it had caused so much publicity that the pause was warranted.

Manhattan Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected the argument, saying the criminal charges are “entirely unrelated” to the civil case and that Trump provoked much of the media coverage himself.

“This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution,” Kaplan said in the Monday decision. “The suggestion that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment – coverage significantly (though certainly not entirely) invited or provoked by Mr. Trump’s own actions – would preclude selection of a fair and impartial jury on April 25 is pure speculation.”

Kaplan also said he was concerned that the request for the pause was another “delay tactic” by Trump.

Carroll alleged in a lawsuit that Trump defamed her by calling her a liar when he denied that he raped her in a department store dressing room. She added a charge of battery under a recent New York law that allows survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attackers in cases in which the statute of limitations has expired.

The civil suit against Trump is just one of the several legal woes facing the presidential candidate, including two federal probes into his handling of classified documents and his actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots. Trump was also charged earlier this month with 34 felony counts in his alleged role in hush-money payments made during the 2016 election.