Judge shoots down Trump’s attempt to dismiss defamation suit brought by sexual assault accuser

A New York state judge on Thursday denied President Donald Trump’s effort to dismiss a defamation lawsuit against him by arguing his residency in Washington should preclude him from being sued in New York.

The judge’s ruling will allow the lawsuit by longtime magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll to move forward. In November, Carroll sued Trump for defamation over what she has said were his lies denying her public accusation months earlier that he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at luxury Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s.

After Carroll went public with her account, Trump denied the incident had occurred, calling it “totally false,” and said of Carroll that he “never met this person.” Those claims, the lawsuit said, were “false” and “defamatory.”

On Thursday, New York state Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan not only denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the case, but faulted him for failing to include a written statement to support his effort.

“Although defendant Trump, through his counsel, claims lack of personal jurisdiction, notably, there is not even a tweet, much less an affidavit by Trump in support of his motion,” the judge wrote.

An attorney for Trump, Lawrence S. Rosen, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

An attorney for Carroll, Robbie Kaplan, said in a statement that “we are pleased, and unsurprised, that the Court refused to tolerate Donald Trump’s latest attempt to avoid discovery in our client’s case.”

She added, “We look forward to moving ahead in this case and proving that Donald Trump lied when he told the world that he did not rape our client and had not even met her.”