Trump loses appeal over sexual abuse, defamation verdict

Court Rejects His Argument That Judge's Decisions Led to Unfair Trial and Verdict

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NEW YORK - A US federal appeals court on Dec 30 upheld a US$5 million (S$6.8 million) verdict that Ms E. Jean Carroll won against Donald Trump when a jury found the US President-elect liable for sexually abusing and later defaming the former magazine columnist.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Trump's argument that the trial judge should not have let jurors hear evidence about the Republican's alleged past sexual misconduct, making the trial and verdict unfair.

The court said that evidence, including Trump bragging about his sexual prowess on an Access Hollywood video that surfaced during the 2016 US presidential campaign, established a "repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of conduct" consistent with Ms Carroll's allegations.

"Taking the record as a whole and considering the strength of Ms Carroll's case, we are not persuaded that any claimed error or combination of errors in the district court's evidentiary rulings affected Mr Trump's substantial rights," the court said, in an unsigned decision.

The May 2023 verdict stemmed from an incident around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, where Ms Carroll, now 81, said Trump raped her, and an October 2022 post on the social media platform Truth Social where Trump denied Ms Carroll's claim as a hoax.

Though jurors in federal court in Manhattan did not find that Trump, 78, committed rape, they awarded the former Elle magazine advice columnist US$2.02 million for sexual assault and US$2.98 million for defamation.