A federal appeals court has upheld a $5 million verdict against Donald Trump for sexually abusing and defaming magazine writer E Jean Carroll, marking a legal setback for the president-elect, The Guardian reported.
The three-judge panel at the second US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan rejected Trump’s appeal for a new trial. They ruled that evidence, including testimonies from other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct and the infamous Access Hollywood tape, was properly admitted in court. The tape famously recorded Trump boasting about grabbing women.
The verdict, handed down in May 2023, found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a New York department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, before he became president. However, the jury did not label the incident as rape. The $5m included $2.02m for sexual assault and $2.98m for defamation related to Trump’s 2022 social media post, where he dismissed Carroll’s accusations as a “hoax”.
The appeals court found that testimonies from two other women, businesswoman Jessica Leeds and former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, were crucial in establishing a pattern of behaviour consistent with Carroll’s allegations. “Mr. Trump’s statements in the Access Hollywood tape, together with the testimony of Ms Leeds and Ms Stoynoff, establish a repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of conduct consistent with what Ms Carroll alleged,” the court said, according to The Guardian.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement, “Both E Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision. We thank the second circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments,” as reported by The Guardian.
The ruling follows a separate defamation verdict in January 2024, when Carroll won $83.3m after Trump denied her allegations in 2019. Trump is appealing that verdict as well. Trump has consistently denied all the accusations, claiming he never met Carroll and that she was “not his type”.
Despite the ruling, the case is expected to continue after Trump’s second presidential term begins on 20 January 2025. The US Supreme Court ruled in 1997 that sitting presidents do not have immunity from civil litigation over actions that occurred before they took office.
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