Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Attempt to Overturn Jean Carroll Verdict
A federal appeals court has rejected former President Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn a jury’s decision that found him guilty of sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Monday that Trump failed to prove that the district court made any mistakes that would require a new trial.
In 2022, a jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan and for making defamatory statements about her. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. Trump is also appealing a separate civil case in which he was ordered to pay Carroll $83 million in damages, but that appeal is still ongoing.
Trump argued that the judge in the case, District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, made errors by allowing two women, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, to testify about their own allegations of sexual assault by Trump. He also argued that part of the infamous 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump was heard making lewd comments about women, should not have been admitted as evidence. However, the appeals court ruled that the tape was allowed as evidence of a pattern of behavior, which could have led the jury to conclude that Trump had kissed women without consent and touched them inappropriately.
