A federal appeals court denied Donald Trump’s request for a new trial in the lawsuit for sexual abuse of the New York writer E. Jean Carroll, which is a serious blow for the president-elect in his attempt to leave his legal problems behind before taking office.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan on Monday rejected Trump’s argument that jurors should not have heard last year the so-called Access Hollywood tape or the testimony of one of the other two women, in addition to Carroll, who also accused him of sexual assault.
That evidence helped “establish a repeated and idiosyncratic pattern of conduct consistent with what Ms. Carroll alleged,” the court said. “In each of the three encounters, Mr. Trump engaged in an ordinary conversation with a woman he barely knew, then abruptly lunged at her in a semi-public location and proceeded to forcibly kiss and touch her without her consent.”
The president-elect could now appeal to the US Supreme Court.
“The American people have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate, and demand an immediate end to the political instrumentalization of our judicial system and a swift dismissal of all witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll hoax, which will continue to be appealed,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement: “Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision. We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.
Trump was found responsible by a Manhattan jury in May 2023 after a trial in which he refused to testify. The panel of six men and three women awarded Carroll $5 million in damages for the abuse claim, as well as a defamation claim.
Trump is separately appealing another verdict against him in a defamation lawsuit brought by Carroll that resulted in an $83.3 million award. for the comments he made about her from the White House during his first term. Arguments in that appeal have not yet been held.
Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, went public in 2019 with her claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in a changing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s. She sued in 2022 under a New York law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on assault lawsuits that are decades old.
Trump argued that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan should not have allowed the jury to hear Jessica Leeds, who testified that Trump assaulted her in 1979 on a flight to New York while she sat next to him in first class. The appeals court rejected Trump’s argument that his alleged conduct was not a crime at the time.
Trump’s lawyers also argued that jurors should not have heard the so-called Access Hollywood tape. The 2005 recording captures Trump making offhand comments about kissing women without consent and boasting that famous men can get away with groping women.
Defense attorneys had argued that the tape was irrelevant to Carroll’s allegations and could bias the jury against Trump.
