By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – 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.
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 claim.
In both denials, Trump said he did not know Carroll, she was “not my type,” and that she fabricated the rape claim to promote her memoir. He is appealing the $83.3 million verdict.
Carroll’s cases are continuing despite Trump’s having won a second four-year White House term on Nov. 5.
In 1997, in a case involving former President Bill Clinton, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sitting presidents have no immunity from civil litigation in federal court over actions predating and unrelated to their official duties as president.
Trump’s lawyers argued the $5 million verdict should be thrown out because the trial judge should not have let jurors hear testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
One, businesswoman Jessica Leeds, said Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s. The other, former People magazine writer, Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005.
Trump’s lawyers also said the trial judge should not have let jurors watch a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video where Trump boasted graphically about forcing himself on women.
Both trials were overseen by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York)
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