US President-elect Donald Trump on Monday failed in his attempt to overturn the verdict of a $5 million defamation case in the federal court of appeals. The three-judge panel upheld the verdict won by journalist E. Jean Carroll, in which Trump was found guilty of both sexual abuse and defamation.A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $5 million verdict that E. Jean Carroll won against Donald Trump when a jury found the U.S. President-elect liable for sexually abusing and later defaming the former magazine columnist.
The decision was issued by a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
The May 2023 verdict stemmed from an incident around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, where Carroll said Trump raped her, and an October 2022 Truth Social post where 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 $2.02 million for sexual assault and $2.98 million for defamation.
The appeals court found Judge Kaplan had not “abused his discretion” by letting that evidence into the case. The “evidence of other conduct was relevant to show a pattern tending to directly corroborate witness testimony and to confirm that the alleged sexual assault actually occurred,” the ruling said.
Trump is also appealing Carroll’s $83 million defamation judgment against him in a separate but related case centering on defamatory comments he made about her while he was president and then after the $5 million verdict.
That case was actually the first suit she filed against Trump, but it was stalled while Trump argued that his comments were protected by presidential immunity, a claim the judge rejected.
Trump is appealing that verdict to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as well.
