By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York state choose on Monday gave former U.S. President Donald Trump a Dec. 23 deadline to endure questioning in a defamation lawsuit filed by a former contestant on “The Apprentice” after he denied her sexual assault accusations.
Justice Jennifer Schecter of the New York state courtroom in Manhattan mentioned Trump should undergo a deposition, after his lawyer mentioned Trump deliberate to countersue his accuser, Summer season Zervos, beneath a state regulation designed to encourage free speech.
Schecter dominated after a convention the place the deliberate countersuit was introduced, and attorneys for Trump and Zervos accused their opponents of stalling.
“He simply can not delay this case any longer,” Zervos’ lawyer Moira Penza mentioned on the convention.
Zervos had sued Trump in January 2017, however the case stays unresolved partly as a result of Trump argued whereas within the White Home {that a} sitting president couldn’t be sued.
That situation turned moot after Joe Biden gained the 2020 presidential election, which made Trump a non-public citizen, New York’s highest courtroom dominated in March.
In an announcement, Trump’s new lawyer, Alina Habba, mentioned the trial courtroom “made its place clear right this moment – Ms. Zervos should adjust to the courtroom’s directive and produce all related and excellent discovery. Within the meantime, we might be vigorously defending the President in opposition to this frivolous lawsuit.”
Legal professionals for Zervos weren’t instantly out there for remark. Any deposition of Zervos should additionally happen by Dec. 23.
Throughout the 2016 presidential marketing campaign, Zervos had accused Trump of subjecting her to undesirable kissing and groping when she sought profession recommendation in 2007, two years after her look on his actuality tv present.
She sued Trump after he referred to as such allegations by girls “lies” and retweeted a publish calling Zervos’ claims a “hoax.”
Zervos has sought a retraction or an apology, plus compensatory and punitive damages. Trump has denied Zervos’ claims and referred to as her case politically motivated.
Habba mentioned Trump would file a counterclaim beneath New York’s “anti-SLAPP” regulation, which is supposed to discourage lawsuits designed to punish or harass defendants for talking out on public points and was expanded final November to cowl extra speech.
SLAPP stands for “Strategic Lawsuit Towards Public Participation.”
Former Elle journal columnist E. Jean Carroll can also be suing Trump for defamation, after he denied having raped her in a Manhattan division retailer within the mid-Nineteen Nineties.
Trump has denied defaming Carroll, and resisted giving a deposition or offering DNA proof. He has additionally denied claims by a number of different girls of improper sexual conduct.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Enhancing by Dan Grebler)
