The attorneys for former President Donald Trump asked the judge to defer the start of a sexual assault and defamation trial for one month to allow for a “cooling off” period following the historic indictment charging Trump with falsifying business records.
Trump’s counsel, Joe Tacopina, asked the judge presiding over the defamation and battery lawsuit filed by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll to postpone the trial until the end of May. The trial is expected to commence on April 25.
Trump requests postponement of sexual assault trial after historic indictment.
Tacopina stated that due to extensive media coverage, potential jurors will have the criminal allegations “front and center” in their minds when they are summoned, which could contaminate the jury pool. Days before the 2016 presidential election, Trump was charged with falsifying business documents to conceal hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels to prevent her from revealing an affair. Trump pled not guilty to the accusations against him.
The recent coverage of alleged sexual misbehavior, the same problem at the heart of this action, distinguishes this case.
“Certainly, President Trump is a recurrent topic of media coverage. In his letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, Tacopina argued that “the present circumstance is distinct because, as indicated above, the recent coverage pertains to alleged sexual misconduct, the same issue at the core of this litigation.”
Trump denies having an affair with Daniels. He has also denied sexually assaulting Carroll, who claims he violated her in the dressing room of a New York department store in the mid-1990s. She initially sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he denied the rape, stated “she’s not my type,” and claimed she fabricated the allegation to increase book sales.