A New York federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury’s verdict that President-elect Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed columnist E. Jean Carroll and owes her $5 million for doing so.
“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the judges wrote. “Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”
Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, thanked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “for its careful consideration” of the arguments.
“Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision,” Kaplan said in a statement.
Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesperson, said the American people have reelected Trump and demand a swift dismissal of litigation, including Carroll’s lawsuit. Trump will continue to appeal the case, Cheung said.
Carroll brought the lawsuit against the former president, claiming he assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s and then hurt her reputation by attacking her allegations as a “con job” in 2022. Trump has strongly denied her claims and disputed a Manhattan civil jury’s unanimous verdict.
In his appeal, Trump’s lawyers attacked trial Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decision to allow two other women to testify that Trump assaulted them, too. Trump, who has maintained his innocence, argued he was entitled to a new trial.
But appeals court judges Denny Chin, Susan Carney and Myrna Perez disagreed. Chin and Carney were appointed by former President Barack Obama and Perez was appointed by President Joe Biden.
The appeals court ruled that such evidence is usually excluded but that acceptable purposes for allowing it included showing “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident.”
When Congress adopted rules that Trump cited, the appeals court found that the rules allowed courts to admit evidence that a “defendant has the motivation or disposition to commit sexual acts.”
One of the two said Trump pushed her against a wall and forcibly kissed her as she was conducting a magazine interview in the mid-2000s. The other woman described him grabbing her breasts and trying to kiss her while reaching up her skirt on an airplane in the late 1970s. Trump denies those allegations as well.
The Trump team also argued the jury shouldn’t have been allowed to hear Trump saying on an “Access Hollywood” recording that he kisses women without waiting for them to give consent and that stars can grab women’s genitals.
“The jury could have reasonably concluded from those statements that, in the past, Mr. Trump had kissed women without their consent and then proceeded to touch their genitalia,” the appeals court ruled.
Carroll’s lawyers argued that her sexual abuse case against Trump wasn’t even close, in part because two friends of Carroll testified they heard her story of being assaulted by Trump soon after she says it happened. The lawyers also said the testimony from the other women who said they were assaulted by Trump demonstrated his propensity to assault women “in markedly similar ways across time.”
The $5 million verdict is only part of Trump’s legal troubles with Carroll. A separate federal jury awarded Carroll another $83.3 million for statements Trump made in 2019, soon after Carroll went public with her allegations. At that time, Trump said “people should pay dearly for such false accusations.” Trump is still appealing that larger verdict.
Trump has said Carroll’s story is false and she isn’t his “type.” Carroll’s legal team has noted that during a 2022 deposition Trump confused Carroll in a photo from 1987 for his former wife, Marla Maples. Carroll testified at length in the sexual abuse case about her assault allegations and was cross-examined by Trump’s legal team.
