Appeals court upholds $5mn award in sex abuse verdict against Trump

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.

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The 2nd US 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 follow-up defamation 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.