By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Donald Trump failed to convince the federal court of appeals to reconsider the $5 million verdict won by E. Jean Carroll after a jury found the U.S. president sexually abused the former magazine columnist and slandered the former magazine columnist.
Manhattan's Second Circuit Court of Appeals split Friday, with its ruling retaining the jury prize.
Carroll, 81, accused Trump of attacking her in the locker room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan around 1996 and defaming her in a truth-clarifying social position in October 2022, denying that her claim was a scam.
The juror decided in May 2023 that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll and slandered her by lying. They did not find Trump raped Carol, as she claimed.
In seeking reconsideration, Trump insisted that the trial judge made a mistake in having jurors review the 2005 “visit Hollywood” video, boasting about his sexual ability, and “stacked” evidence of inflammation that showed he abused two other women.
Businessman Jessica Leeds said Trump was groping her on a plane in the late 1970s. Another former character magazine writer, Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump forced a kiss on his Mar-A-Lago estate in 2005. Trump denied their claims.
Trump, who turned 79 on Saturday, attracted a $83.3 million jury verdict in January 2024 to slander Carroll and damage her reputation in June 2019, when he first denied her claims about the encounter with Bergdorf.
In this appeal, the president argued that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in July provided him with substantial criminal immunity to protect him from Carol's civil case.
Trump said in 2019 and 2022 that she was not “my type” and made a rape claim that promoted her memoirs.
(Reported by Jonathan Stearboard, New York)
