Appeals court upholds $5 million award in sexual abuse verdict against President-elect Donald Trump

NEW YORK, N.Y. – A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a jury’s finding in a civil case that Donald Trump sexually abused a columnist in an upscale department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a written opinion upholding the $5 million award that the Manhattan jury granted to E. Jean Carroll for defamation and sexual abuse.'

The longtime magazine columnist had testified at a 2023 trial that Trump turned a friendly encounter in spring 1996 into a violent attack after they playfully entered the store’s dressing room.

Trump skipped the trial after repeatedly denying the attack ever happened. But he briefly testified at a followup trial earlier this year that resulted in an $83.3 million award. The second trial resulted from comments then-President Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first made the accusations publicly in a memoir.