President-elect Donald Trump is not entitled to a new trial if a jury finds him. Liability for sexual abuse and defamation A federal appeals court upheld author E. Jean Carroll’s conviction Monday.
The court roundly rejected claims by Trump and his lawyers that the judge presiding over the trial made a series of decisions that undermined his standing with jurors.
Trump requested a new trial in May 2023 after a jury unanimously concluded there was ample evidence to support Carroll’s claims that Trump sexually assaulted her after they met at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s. Monday’s 77-page decision rejected complaints Trump repeatedly made before, during and after the nine-day trial.
The New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that District Judge Lewis Kaplan did not err in allowing testimony from two women who alleged encounters with Trump that bore similarities to Carroll.
“President Trump held her up against the wall with his shoulders and his entire body weight on her, kissed her, then pulled down her stockings and inserted his fingers into her vagina. “Mr. Carroll barely got up on his knees and got him away from her,” the appeals court wrote, summarizing the evidence and testimony for Carroll’s claims.
Carroll said she and Trump ran into each other while shopping at Bergdorf Goodman. It started off as a pleasant stroll through the store, she claimed, as she helped him pick out a gift for another woman and they joked about it before turning violent in the changing room.
President Trump strongly denied Carroll’s claims and pledged to appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. He also appealed a January 2024 trial ruling that found Carroll liable for additional defamation charges. That appeal is still pending. The juries in both cases combined to find Carroll. Over $88 million.
Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump spokesman Stephen Cheng said he plans to appeal and that Americans who voted for Trump demand “a swift disbanding of all witch hunts.”
In a statement to CBS News, Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, thanked the appeals court for its “careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”
“E. Jean Carroll and I are both pleased with today’s decision,” said Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge.
Among Trump’s complaints about the trial: “The juryhollywood access,” can be heard describing President Trump grabbing a woman’s genitals. The video was widely shared during the 2016 presidential election. The court ruled that Lewis Kaplan did not err in allowing the video to be released. did it
Carroll’s federal civil suit alleged rape, sexual abuse and defamation as defined in New York’s criminal code. The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation but dismissed the rape claim, which requires proof of forcible penetration, including the attacker’s genitals, under New York state statute.
judge wrote it later New York’s criminal laws are divorced from federal standards and the “modern” understanding of what rape is. In his ruling after the trial, he wrote that Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her was “substantially true.”
“The definition of rape in New York criminal law is much narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern terms, definitions in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal laws, and elsewhere,” Lewis Kaplan wrote in July 2023. .
The jury “implicitly found that Mr. Trump did, in fact, digitally rape Ms. Carroll,” Lewis Kaplan wrote.
