Washington:
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury verdict ordering President-elect Donald Trump to pay $5 million on sexual abuse and defamation charges against author E. Jean Carroll.
After a nine-day civil trial last year, a New York jury found the former president sexually abused Carroll in 1996 at a Manhattan department store.
Trump was ordered to pay $2 million for sexual abuse and another $3 million for defamation of Carroll, a former Elle magazine advice columnist.
Trump denies the allegations, and two other women who say they were sexually assaulted by Trump also appealed the ruling, arguing they should not have been allowed to testify.
A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed.
“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not shown that the district court erred in any of the challenged decisions,” they said.
“Furthermore, he bears the burden of showing that the alleged error, or combination of alleged errors, affected his substantive rights as required to justify a new trial. No.”
Carroll was awarded $83 million by another jury in a separate lawsuit against Trump.
He has appealed the verdict, and Trump’s spokesman Stephen Chan said the Republican Party plans to further appeal the $5 million in damages awarded in the sexual abuse and defamation case. said.
“The American people re-elected President Trump with overwhelming authority,” Chan said in a statement.
“They are demanding an immediate end to the political weaponization of the justice system and the immediate dismissal of all Democrat-funded witch hunts, including the Carroll hoax case, which will continue to be appealed,” he said. .
Two federal lawsuits brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith since Trump won the Nov. 5 presidential election have been dismissed.
After leaving the White House, Trump was accused of mishandling classified documents and trying to overturn the 2020 election results, but Smith filed suit under the Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents. was withdrawn.
Trump was found guilty in New York in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Judge Juan Melchan recently rejected the president-elect’s request to overturn the conviction, but postponed sentencing indefinitely.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
