By JAKE OFFENHARTZ, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court has upheld a civil jury’s finding that President Donald Trump must pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for his repeated social media attacks against the longtime advice columnist after she accused him of sexual assault.
In a ruling issued Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s appeal of the defamation award, finding that the “jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable.”
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Trump had argued that he should not have to pay the sum as a result of a Supreme Court decision expanding presidential immunity. His lawyers had asked for a new trial.
A civil jury in Manhattan issued the $88.3 million award last year following a trial that centered on Trump’s repeated social media attacks against Carroll over her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store in 1996.
That award followed a separate trial, in which Trump was found liable for sexually abusing Carroll and ordered to pay $5 million. That award was upheld by an appeals court last December.
In a memoir, and again at a 2023 trial, Carroll described how a chance encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue in 1996 started with the two flirting as they shopped, then ended with a violent struggle inside a dressing room.
Carroll said Trump slammed her against a dressing room wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her.
A jury found Trump liable for sexual assault, but concluded he hadn’t committed rape, as defined under New York law.
Trump repeatedly denied that the encounter took place and accused Carroll of making it up to help sell her book.
He also said that Carroll was “not my type.”
The 2023 jury awarded Carroll $5 million to compensate her for both the alleged attack and statements Trump made denying that it had happened.
After that first verdict, the court held a second trial with a new jury for the purpose of deciding damages for additional statements Trump made attacking Carroll’s character and truthfulness.
Trump had skipped the first civil trial but he attended the second, which took place as he was running for president in 2024. Speaking to reporters throughout the trial, Trump portrayed the lawsuit as part of a broader effort to smear him and prevent him from regaining the White House.
His lawyers complained that the judge, in setting rules for the second, damages trial, had barred Trump and his defense team from claiming in front of the jury that he was innocent of the attack. The judge ruled that that issue had been settled by the first jury and didn’t need to be revisited.
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