(RepublicanDaily.org) Former president Donald Trump may be enjoying resounding victories in the recent state primaries – so much that he has become the prospective Republican presidential nominee in all but name – but his legal battles are another matter.
The judge presiding over the former commander-in-chief’s defamation suit has put a damper on Trump’s petition to extend a deadline imposed by the court for the former president to pay $83.3 million to 80-year-old writer E. Jean Carroll. Carroll accused Trump of raping her in the changing room of a posh department store in Manhattan in the 1996, Trump has denied the allegations – which triggered the defamation lawsuit filed by Carroll. In May last year, a jury found the former president guilty of sexual abuse and awarded a $5 million payout to Carroll. The jury’s decision also made a distinction between sexual assault and rape, and said that Trump did not commit rape as the crime is defined under New York state law.
The defamation trial began in January, with the presiding judge ruling to accept last year’s sexual assault verdict and only determine the amount of damages Trump would pay Carroll over statements made by the former over the incident. Trump claimed that he did not know Carroll, denied any rape or sexual relations between them, and accused Carroll of inventing a story in order to drum up publicity for her memoir – where she revealed the rape incident – and damage his political career.
In his decision, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan also scored Trump’s attorneys for putting off the filing of their request to delay the payment deadline.
“Mr. Trump’s current situation is a result of his own dilatory actions,” Judge Kaplan wrote.
Once the decision becomes final, Trump will only have several days to come up with the payment for Carroll.
The payment is another expense Trump has had to deal with as a result of the multiple lawsuits he is facing. The former chief executive also owes the state of New York almost $454 million after he lost his civil fraud case over claims that he and his sons deliberately inflated the value of several real estate properties in order to secure more favorable deals with financial institutions.
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