Who Is Judge Lewis Kaplan? Man Set to Preside Over Donald Trump Rape Case

Donald Trump is about to face yet another trial in New York, a few weeks after being charged with 34 felony counts by a Manhattan grand jury—this time, he'll be on trial after a columnist's claims that he raped her in the 1990s.

E. Jean Carroll sued the former president in 2019, saying he raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. Trump has consistently denied the accusation and accused Carroll of defamation. He is unlikely to attend the entire trial but might take the witness stand, according to a letter sent by his attorney.

The case will be heard before a Manhattan federal court starting from April 25. It is set to be presided by Lewis A. Kaplan, a federal judge who is no stranger to high-profile, controversial cases.

Kaplan, New York-born, grew up in the borough of Staten Island. He graduated from Harvard Law School and later was nominated to a seat in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Kaplan took senior status in February 2011.

During his long and decorated career, the 78-year-old has taken over cases involving New York mobsters (specifically, 14 members of the Gambino family) and former Al-Qaeda members. He has presided over the high-profile case that saw the British Duke of York, Andrew, being accused of sexual assault by Virginia Giuffre.

The case against Prince Andrew caused the duke to fall out of grace within the royal family and with the U.K. public. Kaplan denied the duke's plea to dismiss the civil case and ruled that he was not entitled to bring up a settlement Giuffre had with convicted sex felon Jeffrey Epstein.

The judge also oversaw the case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian-born member of Al-Qaeda who became the first Guantanamo Bay prisoner to receive a civilian trial. Kaplan sentenced Ghailani to life in prison for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed over 200 people.

However, the judge has recently been the object of controversy. In 2020, more than 200 lawyers filed a judicial complaint against him accusing him of abusively targeting human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, who was sentenced to six months in prison for criminal contempt. This was in relation to a $9.5 billion judgment Donziger helped Indigenous people win against Chevron in Ecuador. The oil giant had consistently accused Donziger of profiting from the collection of the award, a claim that was upheld by Kaplan.

The New York federal judge last week denied a request from Trump's attorney Joe Tacopina for a four-week delay in the case against him. This was sprung by the need for "cooling off" after the former president was indicted earlier this month.

"This case is entirely unrelated to the state prosecution," Kaplan wrote in response to Tacopina's request. "The suggestion that the recent media coverage of the New York indictment—coverage significantly (though certainly not entirely) invited or provoked by Mr. Trump's own actions—would preclude selection of a fair and impartial jury on April 25 is pure speculation. So too is his suggestion that a month's delay of the start of this trial would 'cool off' anything, even if any 'cooling off' were necessary."

Kaplan added that there is a "possibility that this latest eve-of-trial request for a postponement is a delay tactic" by Trump and his team. Kaplan called for both parties'—the former president and 79-year-old Carroll—right to a fair trial. Carroll's case has been pending for three years.