A federal appeals court panel on Monday let stand a jury’s verdict finding former president Trump liable for sexually assaulting columnist E. Jean Carroll.
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that Trump did not sufficiently demonstrate that any claimed mistakes in the legal process jeopardized his rights or merited a new trial.
“On review for abuse of discretion, we conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the panel wrote in its unsigned opinion.
Carroll originally sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he repeatedly denied her sexual-assault allegations, and she leveled another suit in 2022 accusing him of rape and of again defaming her in a Truth Social post in October 2022 calling her allegations a “hoax.” Though Carroll accused Trump of rape, jurors rejected this claim, finding Trump liable for lesser-degree sexual abuse in May 2023, when he was ordered to pay $5 million in combined damages.
Carroll originally alleged that Trump pressured her to go into a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the lingerie department after a chance meeting in the store. Carroll was an advice columnist for Elle magazine at the time. She accused him of thrusting her head against the wall of the dressing room and sexually assaulting her. Carroll claimed she told two friends immediately after the incident but did not notify the police. Though she said the encounter happened in 1996, she did not come forward with her story publicly until 2019, when New York magazine published an excerpt of her forthcoming book which detailed the incident.
In a second trial, a jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in defamation damages for continuing to refute Carroll’s story in the media. Trump is still appealing that verdict.
The panel affirmed on Monday that testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct and the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump boasts about sexually violating women without their consent, was rightfully admitted as evidence. Trump had appealed on the grounds that these testimonies should not have been admitted, contending that these and other asserted errors entitled him to a new trial.
From these other encounters and documentation, the panel said that a jury could reasonably infer that Trump “engaged in similar conduct with other women — a pattern of abrupt, nonconsensual, and physical advances on women he barely knew.”
After winning the second trial, Carroll went on a bizarre press tour in which she flaunted the large sums she had received and suggested she’d start a fund for other women who claim to have been sexually assaulted by Trump.
On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow asked her to what causes she might allocate the money.
Carroll replied: “First thing, Rachel, you and I are going to go shopping for a completely new wardrobe, new shoes. . . . Rachel, what do you want? A penthouse? It’s yours!” Her lawyer, chuckling along, added, “That’s a joke.”