The judge in the $83.3 million defamation suit against Donald Trump once mentored the lawyer of E. Jean Carroll who filed the suit, according to Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba.
Habba made the claim in a Monday letter to the judge, Lewis Kaplan, of the U.S. District Court of Southern New York, the New York Post said.
Until she read a New York Post news story, Habba said, she did not learn of Kaplan’s mentoring of Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan (not related), when both of them worked together at a New York City law firm in the 1990s.
“If Your Honor truly worked with Ms. Kaplan in any capacity — especially if there was a mentor/mentee relationship — that fact should have been disclosed before any case involving these parties was permitted to proceed forward,” Habba wrote.
“This issue is particularly concerning since Plaintiff’s other lead counsel, Shawn Crowley, served as Your Honor’s law clerk, and we were previously advised that Your Honor co-officiated her wedding,” Habba’s letter said.
Habba said the defense and Judge Kaplan had “many clashes” during the jury trial against Trump.
In appealing the case, Habba said she will argue “that the Court was overtly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards” Roberta Kaplan.
A representative of Roberta Kaplan minimized the relationship she had with the future judge when they worked together some 30 years ago at the Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison law firm.
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“They overlapped for less than two years in the early 1990s at a large law firm when he was a senior partner and she was a junior associate, and she never worked for him,” the representative said.
In writing Judge Kaplan, Habba said the New York Post story of his mentoring of Roberta Kaplan stemmed from information from an “unnamed partner” at the law firm, who described a close relationship between the individuals.
“Lew was like her mentor,” the law firm partner was reported to have said.
Besides citing relevant federal law regarding possible reasons judges should recuse themselves, Habba highlighted part of Canon 3 of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges.
It requires judges to disqualify themselves in cases involving “a lawyer with whom the judge previously practiced law.”
Habba wrote that she had not yet decided what she would be seeking to remedy her claim of conflict of interest; she indicated that could be a new trial.
Whatevers she decides, Habba said, “This Court should provide defense counsel with all of the relevant facts.”
Habba’s letter represents one more move in the ongoing battle between the former president and Carroll, a former advice columnist.
Last spring, a nine-person jury awarded Carroll $5 million after finding Trump had sexually assaulted but did not rape her. That case is under appeal.
In June, Trump sued Carroll, saying she defamed him by publicly claiming rape. Kaplan halted that suit, saying the jury had demonstrated the claim of rape was “substantially true.”
Last week’s $83.3 million award was related to a different defamation claim by Carroll.
Trump has denied he has ever met Carroll; his denials regarding Carroll have led to her lawsuit for defamation.
