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A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury’s finding that former President Donald Trump sexually abused magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the $5 million award Carroll received after a 2023 civil trial, rejecting Trump’s challenges to the verdict.
Carroll testified that a chance encounter with Trump in the spring of 1996 turned into a violent assault after they entered the dressing room of an upscale Manhattan department store. Trump, who has consistently denied the allegations, did not attend the trial.
The appellate court dismissed Trump’s claims that trial Judge Lewis A. Kaplan erred by allowing testimony from other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct and by permitting the jury to view the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump was recorded boasting about grabbing women without their consent.
“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the three-judge panel 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 ruling is the latest legal blow for Trump, who also faces ongoing appeals in a related defamation case. In January, a separate jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in damages after finding Trump defamed her in comments made during his presidency.
Carroll’s lawyer, 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.”
Trump, 78, has continued to deny the allegations, calling the legal proceedings a “Democrat-funded Carroll Hoax.” In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said the former president’s supporters demand “an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system.”
During the trial, two women testified that Trump had assaulted them in separate incidents in the 1970s and 2005, describing strikingly similar patterns of behavior. The appeals court found their testimony and the “Access Hollywood” tape to be compelling evidence of a pattern of misconduct.
“In each of the three encounters, Mr. Trump engaged in an ordinary conversation with a woman he barely knew, then abruptly lunged at her in a semi-public place and proceeded to kiss and forcefully touch her without her consent,” the court wrote.
Carroll, 81, said Trump’s public denials of her accusations profoundly affected her life, leading to death threats and forcing her to retreat to an upstate New York cabin.
Trump’s legal team is expected to continue appealing the decisions, including the January 2024 defamation verdict, which has yet to be heard by the appellate court.
