Written by Jonathan Stemple
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $5 million judgment won by E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump when a jury found the U.S. president-elect liable for the former magazine columnist's sexual assault and subsequent defamation.
The decision was handed down by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
The May 2023 ruling stemmed from an incident around 1996 in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan, where Carroll said Trump raped her, and an October 2022 Truth Social post in which Trump denied Carroll's claim as a hoax.
Although jurors in federal court in Manhattan did not find that Trump committed rape, they did award the former Elle magazine advice columnist $2.02 million on the sexual assault charge and $2.98 million on the defamation charge.
A different jury ordered Trump in January to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her and damaging her reputation in June 2019, when he first denied her rape allegation.
In both cases, Trump denied that he did not know Carroll, that she was “not my type,” and that she had fabricated the rape allegation to promote her memoir. He is appealing the $83.3 million judgment.
Trump's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Carroll's lawyer did not immediately respond to a similar request.
Carroll's cases continue despite Trump winning a second four-year term in the White House on November 5.
In 1997, in a case involving former President Bill Clinton, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that sitting presidents are not immune from civil suits in federal court for past actions unrelated to their official duties as president.
Trump's lawyers argued that the $5 million judgment should be overturned because the trial judge, a U.S. District Judge Louis (Joe:) Kaplan should not have allowed jurors to hear testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
Businesswoman Jessica Leeds said Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s. The other, former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, said that Trump forcefully kissed her at his home in Mar-a-Lago in 2005.
Trump's lawyers also said the trial judge should not have allowed jurors to watch a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump graphically bragged about forcing himself on women.
But the appeals court said Trump failed to prove that Kaplan made a mistake, or that any mistakes warranted a new trial.
Judge Kaplan also oversaw the trial, which ended with an $83.3 million verdict.
