US appeals court on Monday upheld a jury’s verdict that Donald Trump sexually abused a columnist in an upscale department store changing room in the mid-1990s.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a written decision also upholding the $5 million compensation awarded by the Manhattan jury for defamation and sexual abuse.
E Jean Carroll, a veteran magazine columnist, testified during a 2023 trial that a cordial encounter with Trump in spring 1996 turned violent after they entered the store’s changing room.
Trump, who consistently denied the allegations, chose not to attend the trial.
However, he made a brief appearance at a subsequent trial this year that resulted in an $83.3 million award.
The second trial stemmed from remarks made by then-President Trump in 2019 after Carroll initially disclosed these accusations in her memoir.
Trump maintains he has never encountered Carroll, the 80-year-old advice columnist for the Elle magazine.
He claimed she wasn’t his “type”—a statement her legal team interpreted as implying she was insufficiently attractive to be assaulted.
The incident allegedly occurred in 1996, but Carroll filed her lawsuit in November 2022, utilising the newly enacted Adult Survivors Act in New York.
This legislation permits victims of sexual assault to pursue civil cases even after the standard limitation period has expired.
When Carroll initially disclosed the allegations in a New York magazine article in 2019, during Trump’s presidency, he responded with immediate hostility, subsequently labelling her as mentally unstable.