🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Donald Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, has recanted her claim that the judge in E. Jean Carroll's $83.3 million defamation case had "mentored" Carroll's attorney in the 1990s.
She also strongly denied that she had planted a story about the alleged mentoring in the New York Post. This comes after Carroll's lawyer threatened to have her sanctioned for making the claim.
On January 29, Habba wrote to Judge Lewis Kaplan about a New York Post article that suggested that he mentored lawyer Roberta Kaplan, to whom he is not related, and that they therefore had too close a relationship.
The next day, January 30, Roberta Kaplan, strongly denied the accusation in a letter to Judge Kaplan, and threatened to have Habba sanctioned for making a baseless allegation about her.
Later that day, Habba issued a second letter to the court in which she swiftly withdrew her accusation and claimed she was only bringing it to the court's attention.
"Since Ms. Kaplan has now denied that there was ever a mentor-mentee relationship between herself and Your Honor, this issue has seemingly been resolved," Habba wrote.
This second letter accused Roberta Kaplan of mischaracterizing her position.
"I write in response to the letter submitted earlier today by Plaintiff's lead counsel, Roberta Kaplan. In her letter, Ms. Kaplan mischaracterizes the substance of a letter recently submitted on behalf of President Trump and makes inflammatory and unwarranted accusations against the undersigned," Habba wrote.
"Contrary to Ms. Kaplan's contention, there are no 'false allegations of a 'mentor-mentee relationship between Your Honor and [Ms. Kaplan]' contained in my January 29 letter. "The purpose of the letter was simply to inquire as to whether there is any merit to a recently published New York Post story which reported on the alleged existence of such a relationship."
She also strongly denied that she had planted the story in the New York Post.
"To be clear, this claim originated solely from the New York Post, where it was purportedly sourced from a "former Paul Weiss partner who asked not to be named."
"I played no part in uncovering this information; have never communicated with the unnamed Paul Weiss partner; and have no personal knowledge as to whether the information contained in the article is true or false," said Habba.
"As I stated in my January 29 letter, I 'learned for the first time' about the purported mentor-mentee relationship from the New York Post. Although I am quoted in the article, my statements were given in response to the reporter's request for comment (which, per the article, was also sought from Kaplan Hecker & Fink)," she added.
Newsweek sought email comment from Habba and Roberta Kaplan on Wednesday.
Roberta Kaplan wrote a letter earlier on January 30 in which she said she worked at Paul, Weiss et al, as a junior associate, beginning in October 1992, and that Lewis Kaplan, who was one of the senior partners, was appointed to the federal bench and left the firm in August 1994.
"I have no recollection from that time period of ever interacting with Your Honor on a case, participating with Your Honor in a client or case-related meeting, or attending a court proceeding with Your Honor. In fact, I remember no direct interaction from that time period with Your Honor at all ... Needless to say, at no point have we ever had a 'mentor type' relationship as alleged by Ms. Habba," Kaplan wrote.
On Friday, January 26, a New York jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of defaming her reputation as a journalist by denying he raped her in the 1990s.
Carroll had been seeking a minimum of $10 million, but the jury awarded her $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages.
In May, she was awarded $5 million by a different jury, which found Trump not liable for rape but responsible for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her. The former president is appealing that decision.
Carroll claims Trump forcibly groped and then raped her in a Manhattan department store nearly three decades ago. Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has claimed that he had never heard of Carroll prior to her legal action against him.
Trump released a statement Friday evening after the verdict was announced.
"Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party," Trump's statement read. "Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" he wrote.
About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more