What is the current legal status of the Ivana Trump rape allegations case?

1. What Ivana actually said, and how she later qualified it

Ivana Trump’s statement about a 1989 incident appeared in her 1990 divorce deposition and was excerpted in Harry Hurt III’s 1993 book Lost Tycoon, in which she reportedly said her then-husband had “raped” her; she subsequently issued a public clarification saying she “referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense,” and later walked the claim back in interviews and a 1993 statement ^{[1] [2]}. Multiple outlets — including The Guardian and PBS’s recap — note that Ivana softened or disavowed literal criminal language and described feeling “violated” rather than pressing a criminal accusation ^{[4] [6]}.

2. Legal status: no current criminal case tied to Ivana’s deposition in available reporting

Reporting and fact-checks available in the provided material describe the allegation as part of divorce records and later reporting, not as the basis of a criminal prosecution; AP Fact Check and other outlets state she later said she didn’t mean “literally” and there is no record in these sources of a prosecution or current criminal case arising from her deposition ^{[3] [6]}. Legal commentary in these sources frames the exchange as part of civil divorce proceedings and historical reporting rather than an open criminal matter ^[5].

3. How the allegation has been used in later coverage and disputes

The Ivana passage has been repeatedly cited in compilations and retrospectives of sexual-misconduct allegations against Donald Trump; outlets such as Rolling Stone, The Guardian and 19th News recount the deposition material and note Ivana’s later public backtracking ^{[7] [4] [8]}. Some pieces emphasize the statement’s presence in archival records and the role of lawyers and settlements in shaping public statements, while others interpret the described conduct as amounting to sexual violence under some legal definitions — though Ivana’s own subsequent clarification undercuts a straightforward criminal allegation in the public record ^{[7] [1]}.

4. Competing viewpoints in the reporting

One line of reporting treats the 1990 deposition description as a serious historical allegation of rape and highlights details from the Hurt book that portray a violent incident; another emphasizes Ivana’s later retraction and her statement that she did not mean “rape” in the criminal sense, suggesting the matter was legally and publicly resolved in the context of divorce ^{[7] [2]}. Fact-checkers like AP report that she later said she didn’t mean it literally, while investigative pieces assert the deposition contents and contemporaneous accounts remain part of the historical record ^{[3] [8]}. These are competing frames: archival allegation versus the subject’s later disavowal.

5. Why this matters now and what sources don’t say

The allegation resurfaces in timelines of Trump’s many sexual-misconduct accusations because it is atypical — coming from a spouse and appearing in sworn divorce paperwork — but available reporting does not show any ongoing civil or criminal action directly tied to Ivana’s deposition today ^{[4] [5]}. Available sources do not mention any current prosecution, indictment, or pending civil suit initiated by Ivana related to those 1989/1990 claims ^[3]. They also do not supply contemporaneous police records or a modern re-opening of the matter in court.

6. Takeaway and caveats for readers

Readers should treat Ivana’s 1990 deposition language as part of an archival civil-record narrative that she later publicly softened; reporting and fact-checks show both the original text and Ivana’s later clarifying statements, and no source here documents an active legal case tied to her words ^{[1] [3]}. If you need confirmation beyond these sources—for example, copies of the exact sealed divorce filings or any newly unsealed records—those are not provided in the current reporting and would require targeted legal-record searches ^[5].