(AFP) – A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury verdict ordering President-elect Donald Trump to pay $5 million for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. A New York jury found after a nine-day civil trial last year that the former president had sexually abused Carroll at a Manhattan department store in 1996. Trump was ordered to pay $2 million for sexual abuse and another $3 million for defaming Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine.
Trump denied the allegations and appealed the verdict on the grounds that two other women who said Trump had sexually assaulted them too should not have been allowed to testify. The three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. “We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” they said. “Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”
Carroll was awarded $83 million by another jury in a separate case she brought against Trump. He has appealed that verdict and Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, said the Republican would lodge a further appeal against the $5 million damages awarded in the sexual abuse and defamation case. “The American People have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate,” Cheung said in a statement. “They demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll Hoax, which will continue to be appealed,” he said.
Two federal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith have been dismissed since he won the November 5 presidential election. Trump was accused of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election, but Smith dropped the cases under a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president. Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Judge Juan Merchan recently rejected a bid by the president-elect to have his conviction thrown out but has postponed sentencing indefinitely.
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