A federal court in New York has upheld the initial ruling ordering Donald Trump to pay $5 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll after jurors found the former president liable for sexually assaulting and subsequently defaming the former columnist.
The verdict was issued by the three-judge Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
The original ruling, delivered in May 2023, pertained to two incidents: an alleged sexual assault around 1996 in a fitting room at Bergdorf Goodman, a Manhattan department store, where Carroll accused Trump of raping her, and an October 2022 post on the Truth Social platform where Trump called her claims a “hoax.”
While jurors in the Manhattan federal court did not find Trump guilty of rape, they awarded damages to the former Elle magazine columnist, allocating $2.02 million for sexual assault and $2.98 million for defamation.
In a separate case, a different jury ordered Trump in January to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her in June 2019, when he first denied her allegations.
In both instances, Trump claimed he did not know Carroll, stated she was “not his type,” and argued that she fabricated the rape accusation to promote her memoir. He has appealed the $83.3 million defamation judgment as well.
These legal battles continue despite Trump being re-elected president for a second four-year term on 5 November. In 1997, in a case involving then-President Bill Clinton, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that sitting presidents do not have immunity from civil lawsuits brought in federal court over acts committed before taking office and unrelated to their duties.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the $5 million damages award should be overturned because the judge allowed jurors to hear testimony from two other women accusing Trump of inappropriate behaviour. One of them, businesswoman Jessica Leeds, claimed Trump groped her on an aeroplane in the late 1970s. The other, former People magazine journalist Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump kissed her against her will at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005.
Trump’s legal team also contended that the judge should not have permitted jurors to view a 2005 video in which their client graphically described his behaviour towards women.
Both trials were presided over by Judge Lewis Kaplan.
Also read: Global economy shaken by conflicts and Trump
Source: ANA-MPA
