Defamation verdict, criminal case postponed – Deseret News

After a brief hearing Friday morning in the defamation case against former President Donald Trump brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, Trump held a news conference in New York, denying any wrongdoing in the numerous legal cases brought against him.

“We had a trial today,” Mr. Trump said at the news conference. “It’s an appeal of a ridiculous verdict by a woman I’ve never met. I don’t know. I have no idea who she is. She wrote a book and she made up a ridiculous story.”

The hearing Trump attended was to appeal the jury verdict that found him guilty of sexually abusing Carroll in 1996 at a department store. The longtime columnist had written a piece blaming Trump for the incident in her 2019 book.

Carroll has also filed two defamation lawsuits against Trump over statements he made, claiming that his remarks damaged his reputation and led to ongoing threats. In May 2023, at the trial of his first trial, a jury found Trump liable for both defamation and sexual abuse, awarding Carroll $5 million in damages.

In January, a New York jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation.

During the nearly hour-long news conference Friday, Trump accused his political opponents of using the Justice Department as a weapon to alter the results of the upcoming presidential election, in which Trump is the Republican nominee.

“This is a shameful case, and it’s particularly shameful because it involves a former president of the United States who is now leading the polls to be president again, and this case is being handled by the DOJ, the Department of Justice, as all of these cases are,” Trump added.

“Remember, this never happened. This was made up for political reasons, and the Justice Department is behind it. Every single one of these cases is political interference,” he added. “I don’t want anything different from anyone else. I just asked to be treated fairly.”

Trump attorney Will Scharf also spoke at the press conference, calling Carroll’s case “completely implausible.”

“There is no corroboration of anything she ever said about President Trump. There are no corroborating witnesses, as President Trump has alluded to, there is no DNA to corroborate,” he added. “There was no police report filed at the time of this alleged incident. She has not been able to identify when this incident occurred, until very recently, no surveillance evidence or witnesses have ever been found or come forward to confirm any aspect of E Jean Carroll’s story.”

“It is Trump’s fundamental First Amendment right to run for president, a right guaranteed to him by the Constitution, and it is that right that his political opponents are trying to take away. We have seen it in many cases where unfair political motives have motivated what should be serious legal proceedings,” Scharf said.

Sentence postponed in ‘paid silence’ case

In what could be seen as a victory for Trump, the judge overseeing his criminal case postponed the sentencing date until after the November presidential election.

In April, Trump was found guilty of all 34 counts brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, making him the first president in history to be convicted of a crime.

On Friday, Judge Juan Merchan granted Trump’s request to postpone his sentencing, which was scheduled for Sept. 18. The new date is Nov. 26. Merchan wrote that his reasoning for the postponement is “to avoid any appearance — however unwarranted — that the proceedings have been affected by or seek to affect the upcoming presidential election in which the defendant is a candidate,” according to the Associated Press.

“The court is a fair, impartial and apolitical institution,” he added.