The former president and writer E. Jean Carroll were in court Monday when senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan announced a juror had fallen ill and postponed proceedings
The second week of Donald Trump’s trial to determine how much more he owes in damages to E. Jean Carroll was postponed on Monday, due to a juror’s possible COVID-19 exposure.
Some 25 minutes after the trial’s anticipated start time, senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan announced that a juror had fallen ill, reporting a fever and nausea. Kaplan instructed the juror to go home and take a COVID-19 test.
Trump’s lead attorney Alina Habba — who, along with her co-counsel Michael Madaio and the former president beside her at the defense table, was unmasked — also disclosed that she was possibly exposed to the virus through her parents. She said that she experienced a fever, but she tested negative.
After the judge proposed proceeding with one absent juror, Habba requested a break for the day, saying that she did not see a problem with a brief delay.
Over the objections of Carroll’s attorney, Judge Kaplan granted a daylong adjournment.
A little less than a year ago, another federal jury issued a $5 million judgment against Trump after finding that he sexually abused Carroll in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s — and then defamed her decades later by falsely denying the allegations after she went public with her claims.
Before the trial began, Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan found that the verdict precluded Trump from denying the allegations any longer, but he also granted the former president the opportunity to take the witness stand on Monday. The sudden cancellation of Monday’s proceedings means Trump’s anticipated testimony has been delayed.
Before the sudden turn of events, the former president appeared poised to take the stand. Trump arrived at about 9:56 a.m., minutes after the judge had taken the bench and all other parties were in place. When he was walking out, Trump, wearing a scowl on his face, knocked the last bench in the gallery of the courtroom twice with a closed fist.
Citing the New Hampshire primary, Habba asked to delay Trump's testimony until Wednesday, but Carroll's counsel opposed that request.
Judge Kaplan reserved decision on that request, but he denied Trump's pending motion for a mistrial based on Carroll's possible deletion of death threats she said she received.