E Jean Carroll has more reason than usual to anticipate this year’s Thanksgiving weekend.
Under a New York law that took effect during the US holiday, a 79-year-old journalist and author can finally sue Donald Trump for rape allegations she says took place in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s – a statement. which previously would have been barred under the state’s statute of limitations.
The Adult Survivors Act, signed into law by New York governor Kathy Hochul in early 2022, provides a one-year window for time-barred civil lawsuits related to sex crimes, regardless of when they occurred. Previously, victims in the country had between one and three years from the date of the alleged offense to file a civil lawsuit.
In the week since the ASA took effect, additional plaintiffs have filed complaints in the New York court through historical crimes, with cases brought against Atlantic Records, a former gynecologist at Columbia University, financier Leon Black and actor Bill Cosby. Some of the plaintiffs, including Carroll, said they were energized by the #MeToo movement after decades of silence.
“They live in a culture where to this day, any woman can conclude that reporting rape in public . . . will do more harm than good to herself,” said Roberta Kaplan, who represents Carroll, who chose not to speak out when she was raped by the incoming president, fearing threats and lawsuits. “Then the world changed”.
A billboard in Times Square bearing testimony from sexual assault victims marked the start of the law’s implementation in November. But the publicity has been muted since then, and the number of cases filed so far – numbering in the dozens – lags far behind those filed under the Child Victims Act, which is the model for the new law.
The CVA, which was introduced in 2019, allows people who claim to have been assaulted as minors to prosecute crimes that were previously banned, and has been extended for a second year due to the Covid pandemic. It has resulted in approximately 10,000 civil lawsuits, including one brought by Harvey Weinstein’s accuser Kaja Sokola, a former model. It is also the basis for various claims against the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic church.
“It’s a tough time,” said Liz Roberts, chief executive of Safe Horizons, a non-profit that champions the ASA and launched a publicity campaign to coincide with the launch. “The first few weeks have been Thanksgiving and the end of the year – it’s not good”.
“We would like to see the state do more to get the word out,” Roberts, who generally supports the government’s efforts, added.
Several government officials and agencies, including the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, have been the subject of complaints filed under the new law.
More than 750 women plan to sue the state saying they were sexually assaulted in New York prisons and jails, while Sofia Quintanar, a former press secretary in the attorney general’s office, says she was assaulted by a former senior official there.
“There are probably some politicians who won’t talk, that’s for sure,” said Douglas Wigdor, who represents Quintanar and others who have used the ASA. “But I have to believe that the champions of the law will be happy to promote it.”
Black and Trump have vehemently denied the allegations, and both contested the complaints. The former president’s lawyer said the law itself violates due process requirements contained in the New York state constitution.
Other critics of the ASA, such as campaigner Gary Greenberg, claim that it favors cases with the potential for large payouts, and that without legal funding or pro bono work, some victims will in effect be denied access to justice. Because the case is civil, damages may be awarded, but the defendant responsible will not face jail time.
“Victims will go to lawyers and the door will be slammed in their face. Many will give up,” Greenberg said.
“That’s a valid point. I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” said Wigdor, who represents plaintiffs suing Weinstein, the former Hollywood mogul accused of a pattern of abuse in news reports that helped spark the MeToo movement. “If the perpetrator has no money, then I think it will be difficult to find a lawyer to do it”.
Wigdor said he hopes that advertising on Google and internet searches will alert more people to the act. “As other, bigger cases happen . . . I hope people learn about it,” said. The ASA also allows plaintiffs to sue companies, whose pockets can be deeper than the defendant’s.
As the case has been filed, victims and lawmakers outside of New York will be watching. Only New Jersey has passed a similar law.
“They will obviously look at the high-profile cases out there to see whether the women plaintiffs won and how fairly they were treated by the court,” said Kaplan, who previously acted on behalf of the victim of sex offender Jeffery Epstein, among other high-profile cases.
The complaint by Carroll could be the first ASA case to go to trial, as the claim is attached to an ongoing defamation case against the former president. For Kaplan, her lawyer, who also represents a former TV star who says she was raped when she was 19, the trial offers a chance to right a historical wrong.
“It’s true. . . women should have some modicum of justice in court,” Kaplan said. “But time has blinded us to that truth.”