A federal appeals court in Manhattan, on Monday, upheld a $5m civil verdict that found President-elect Donald Trump guilty of defaming and sexually abusing columnist, E. Jean Carroll, less than a month before he retakes office.
A three-judge panel of the court said Trump failed to point out where the district court erred in its ruling and rejected his request for a new trial.
Carroll had accused Trump of rape back in 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, and defamation in an October 2022 Truth Social post, where he described her allegations as a “con job”.
A jury had in May 2023 found Trump liable and ordered him to pay Carroll $5m in damages, roughly $2m for sexual abuse and another $3m for defamation.
Trump denied her claims and disputed a Manhattan civil jury’s unanimous verdict, filing an appeal at the Federal appeals court.
Trump’s lawyers, in the appeal, urged the court to dismiss the verdict as they argued that the trial judge, Lewis Kaplan, accepted testimonies from two other women during the trial.
One businesswoman, Jessica Leeds, said Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s while writer, Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the district court accepted “inflammatory” evidence that should not have been admitted, including a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted about forcing himself on women.
Delivering judgement, the federal court held that Trump failed to prove that the district court erred in its verdict.
“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the Appeals Court 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,” the court held.