NEW YORK —

Former President Donald Trump's claims that absolute presidential immunity and free speech rights shield him from the defamation claims of a New York columnist were rejected Thursday by a federal judge.

The writer, E. Jean Carroll, can continue to press claims that Trump owes her at least $10 million in damages for comments he made before and after she won a $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict against him last month, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said in a written opinion.

Trump tried to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds that he is entitled to absolute presidential immunity, his statements were not defamatory and that his statements were opinion protected by free speech rights.

Kaplan said Trump surrendered absolute presidential immunity as a defense by failing to assert it years ago when the lawsuit was filed. The lawsuit was delayed until recently as appeals courts considered legal issues surrounding it.

Trump countersued Carroll this week, claiming that she has libeled him by continuing to insist that he raped her even after a jury found otherwise.

After a jury returned its verdict last month in Manhattan federal court, Trump made comments on a CNN town hall that prompted Carroll to assert new defamation claims in a 2020 defamation lawsuit.

The jury award resulted from a sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit filed last November after New York state temporarily enacted a law allowing sexual assault victims to sue for damages resulting from attacks that occurred even decades earlier.

Trump's claims in the CNN broadcast mirrored statements he made while president in 2019 when Carroll published a memoir in which she claimed Trump raped her in the dressing room of a luxury midtown Manhattan department store in spring 1996.

Within hours of excerpts from the book being published in a magazine, Trump denied a rape occurred or that he ever knew Carroll.

"Mr. Trump did not merely deny Ms. Carroll's accusation of sexual assault," Kaplan wrote. "Instead, he accused Ms. Carroll of lying about him sexually assaulting her in order to increase sales of her book, gain publicity, and/or carry out a political agenda."

The judge said the main purpose of presidential immunity was to avoid diverting the president from public duties, but it was not a "get-out-of-damages-liability-free card that permits the president to say or do anything he or she desires even if that conduct is disconnected entirely from an official function."

Kaplan said he took into consideration that Carroll is now 79 years old and has pursued claims against Trump for 3 1/2 years.

"There is no basis to risk prolonging the resolution of this litigation further by permitting Mr. Trump to raise his absolute immunity defense now at the eleventh hour when he could have done so years ago," he said.

In rejecting claims that Carroll's lawsuit was about protected speech, Kaplan explained how libel and slander are handled in the courts and why Trump's statements could be construed to fit the legal definition for defamation, including that a jury had already found it so.

Trump's lawyers did not immediately comment.

Attorney Robbie Kaplan, who represents Carroll and is unrelated to the judge, said in a statement that the judge's ruling "confirms that once again, Donald Trump's supposed defenses to E. Jean Carroll's defamation claims don't work."

She added: "Today's decision removes one more impediment to the January 15 trial on E Jean's defamation damages in this case."

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

CINCINNATI — A federal judge has granted class-action status to a 9-year-old lawsuit that alleges Fifth Third Bank misled consumers about the interest rates they paid on cash-advance loans.

It's a case that could cost the bank more than $280 million, according to court filings. The lawsuit alleges Fifth Third violated Truth in Lending rules and breached loan agreements when it offered Early Access loans by quoting an annual percentage rate of 120% for short-term loans that carried much higher effective interest rates.

Fifth Third declined to comment on the March 26 ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett.

People who were enrolled in Fifth Third's Early Access Loan Program from Aug. 3, 2011 through April 30, 2013 will be eligible to pursue damages on the Truth in Lending act claims. Those suing for breach of contract can opt into the class action if they enrolled in Early Access before May 1, 2013, and took out at least one loan from the program.

"We are pleased with Judge Barrett's ruling, which clears the way for a classwide trial and the return of hundreds of millions in usurious interest to thousands of Fifth Third customers," said Hassan Zavareei, a Washington, D.C., attorney who successfully argued the case on behalf of plaintiffs.

"While we cannot comment on the pending litigation, Fifth Third's commitment is to put our customers first," said Fifth Third spokesman Ed Loyd.

As WCPO previously reported, the bank has argued its customers were aware of the fees they were paying for Early Access loans, which allowed people to borrow against their next paycheck when they were short on cash.

Because the bank clearly spelled out that borrowers would pay a $10 fee on every $100 borrowed, Barrett initially dismissed the breach of contract claim. But he was reversed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled the bank's contracts included two contradictory explanations for the annual percentage rate that applied to its loans.

"The APR is designed to allow people to compare the cost of credit, and it's exactly what it doesn't do here," University of New Mexico Law Professor Nathalie Martin told WCPO last July. Martin predicted that the case would be certified as a class action, increasing the pressure on Fifth Third to settle the case.