A federal appeals court in New York has upheld a $5m judgment that E Jean Carroll won against Donald Trump when a jury found the US president-elect liable for sexually abusing and later defaming the former magazine columnist.
The finding was issued on Monday by a three-judge panel of the second US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
The May 2023 judgment stemmed from an incident in about 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan when Carroll said Trump raped her, and an October 2022 Truth Social post in which Trump denied Carroll’s claim as a hoax.
Though jurors in federal court in Manhattan did not find that Trump committed rape, they awarded the former Elle magazine advice columnist $2.02m for sexual assault and $2.98m for defamation.
Another jury ordered Trump in January to pay Carroll $83.3m for defaming her and damaging her reputation in June 2019, when he first denied her rape claim.
In both denials, Trump said he did not know Carroll, she was “not my type,” and that she fabricated the rape claim to promote her memoir. He is appealing against $83.3m judgment.
Lawyers for Trump and Carroll did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Carroll’s cases are continuing despite Trump having won a second four-year White House term on November 5.
In 1997, in a case involving former president Bill Clinton, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sitting presidents have no immunity from civil litigation in federal court on actions predating and unrelated to their official duties as president.
Trump’s lawyers said that the $5m verdict should be thrown out because the trial judge, US district judge Lewis Kaplan, should not have let jurors hear testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
One, businessperson Jessica Leeds, said that Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s. The other, former People magazine writer, Natasha Stoynoff, said that Trump kissed her forcibly at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005.
Trump’s lawyers also said the trial judge should not have let jurors watch a 2005 Access Hollywood video where Trump boasted graphically about forcing himself on women.
But the appeals court said Trump failed to show that Kaplan erred or that any errors warranted a new trial.
Judge Kaplan also oversaw the trial that ended with the $83.3m verdict.
Reuters
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