President-Elect Loses Appeal in Sexual-Abuse Civil Case

A federal appeals court Monday upheld a jury's verdict that President-elect Donald Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and owes her $5 million in damages.

- JAN WOLFE

In a 77-page written decision, a unanimous three-judge panel in New York rejected Trump's argument that the trial judge erred by allowing jurors to hear the now-infamous "Access Hollywood" recording where Trump can be heard talking about groping women in 2005.

The Access Hollywood tape was admissible as evidence of a pattern of behavior, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said, and "the jury could have reasonably concluded from those statements that, in the past, Mr. Trump had kissed women without their consent and then proceeded to touch their genitalia." Carroll first went public with the allegation that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in a 2019 New York magazine article.