New York (AFP) - American journalist E.J. Carroll, who accused Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s, re-filed a civil lawsuit against the former US president Thursday, thanks to a new New York law protecting victims of sexual assault.

A double lawsuit for rape and defamation by Carroll, 78, against Trump, 76, has been filed in federal civil court in Manhattan since 2019, and each entered sworn testimony in October before a New York judge.

In the libel case, author and former Elle columnist EJ Carroll filed a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump in November 2019. She accused him of defaming her because he called allegations of rape in a New York fitting room in 1995 or 1996 "a lie." Completed in June 2019.

The Republican president, who was in office at the time (2017-2021), replied that he had never met her and that she "didn't like him."

His lawyers claimed he was protected in 2019 thanks to his immunity as President of the United States.

As for the rape charges, Carol was unable to file a formal complaint in 2019 because the alleged facts were outdated.

But on November 24, a new New York state law went into effect that allows victims of sexual assault, for a year, to reactivate potential old complaints and file a civil suit.

The law firm "Kaplan Hecker & Fink", whose services Carroll used and the Manhattan federal judiciary, published several court documents Thursday accusing Trump of "rape" and requesting a civil trial in 2023 in order to obtain damages.

In the introduction to the complaint, which has become accepted today and lists all the facts, Donald Trump is accused of "27 years ago (...) he grabbed Jean Carroll in the luxury goods store Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York, pinned her by his shoulder to the wall of a fitting room and raped her."

Carole remained silent for more than twenty years before telling her story in a book at the end of 2010 with the emergence of the #MeToo movement, which was launched in 2017 to reject violence against women.

"While I respect and admire people who speak out, this case unfortunately constitutes a perversion of the objective of the law, which creates a dangerous precedent and may delegitimize the testimonies of the real victims," Trump's lawyer, Alina Heba, told AFP on Thursday.

In October, the former president called the accusations "a hoax and a lie."

And this new defamation of Trump on October 12 on his website Truth Social, which mocks this alleged rape, also allows Carroll to re-move the defamation part of her legal case against Trump, who is accused this time as a private citizen without presidential immunity.