Trump loses his sex abuse and defamation case appeal

A federal appeals court yesterday upheld a ruling against Donald Trump after he challenged a jury's verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming a former magazine writer.

- ALEX WOODWARD

The decision from a three-judge panel with New York’s Second Circuit Court of Appeals follows a May 2023 verdict awarding E Jean Carroll $5m (£4m) for the president-elect’s ongoing defamation by denying claims that he sexually assaulted her in a department store in 1996.

In January, a second jury in a separate trial ordered Mr Trump to pay Ms Carroll more than $83m in damages for his defamatory statements about the former Elle magazine writer.

Mr Trump argued the verdict from the 2023 judgment should be tossed out on his claims that the trial judge should not have let jurors hear testimony from two other women who accused him of sexual misconduct.

One of those women, Jessica Leeds, testified that Mr Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s. Another woman, former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff, said Mr Trump forcibly kissed her at Mar-a-Lago in 2005.

Mr Trump’s lawyers also said jurors should not have listened to his comments on the so-called Access Hollywood tape, on which the president-elect brags about grabbing women’s genitals.

Appellate judges denied Mr Trump’s demand for a new trial.

“Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” and “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,” they wrote.

“The jury made its assessment of the facts and claims on a properly developed record,” according to yesterday’s decision.