Donald Trump’s defense team won’t be able to use a jury’s findings in his previous rape and defamation case to sway the next jury, Judge Lewis Kaplan has ruled.

The current case addresses attacks he launched on E. Jean Carroll during his presidency, after she came forward with a story about him raping her in a department store.

The previous jury found Trump liable for defamation and sexual assault, but not rape, because New York state law differs from the common use of the word in that it requires the unwanted penetration to have been done with a penis.
The previous jury did not feel entirely certain that the defendant carried out his assault with more than fingers.

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However, Judge Kaplan has since affirmed that this does fit most definitions of rape.

Trump’s attorneys wanted to bring this jury decision as evidence that he could not have defamed Carroll when he said, as president, that she was lying and he claimed that the allegations were politically motivated and a money grab.

Carroll’s attorney, in turn, submitted a filing explaining to the judge why they do not believe that this is relevant to the case — and Judge Kaplan agreed. Carroll’s attorney wrote:

“The technical rape finding would have no probative value in any event since whether Trump penetrated Carroll with his penis and not just his fingers is not relevant in the slightest to measuring the harm to Carroll’s reputation resulting from Trump’s defamatory statements. Nor would the technical rape finding bear on Carroll’s credibility.”

Trump’s team, however, wishes to use this to argue that any reputational damage the victim suffered was her own fault for coming forward. His lawyer wrote in a reply:

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“Relatedly, this evidence directly bolsters that it was Plaintiff coming forward with allegations against Defendant, and not Defendant’s denial, that caused her any damages (to the extent there is any damage). The jury found that there was no evidence that Defendant raped Plaintiff, which supports a finding that it was Plaintiff’s baseless allegation of rape that would cause any damage, not Defendant’s statements.”

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In other words, Trump is claiming that if Carroll had just kept her mouth, neither of them would be in the situation they are currently in.

As Judge Kaplan has emphasized, in contrast with the claim in Trump’s filing, the jury did not find that there was no evidence Trump had raped Carroll, only that there was insufficient evidence that he used his penis to do so.

Kaplan entered the order as Carroll sought, saying:

“Plaintiff’s letter motion…is GRANTED. Defendant and his counsel shall not offer any evidence, conduct any examination, or make any argument relating to the Carroll Il jury’s determination that plaintiff had failed to prove that defendant “raped” her within the meaning of New York Penal Law.”

The trial is scheduled to commence on January 16th. Keep watching this space for the details of the trial as it progresses.