A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a civil jury’s finding President Donald Trump must pay $83.3 million to feminist columnist E. Jean Carroll – a writer who accused him of sexually assaulting her in the early 1990s with no hard evidence to support her claims – for his social media commentary on the matter.
AP reports the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s appeal of the defamation award, finding the “jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable.”
Trump had argued he should not have to pay the sum as a result of a Supreme Court decision expanding presidential immunity. His lawyers had asked for a new trial.
AP set out further background to the long-running legal matter stating:
A civil jury in Manhattan issued the $88.3 million award last year following a trial that centered on Trump’s repeated social media attacks against Carroll over her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store in 1996.
That award followed a separate trial, in which Trump was found liable for sexually abusing Carroll and ordered to pay $5 million. That award was upheld by an appeals court last December.
“Trump has failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity. We also conclude that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable,” the opinion Monday said.
Trump repeatedly denied the encounter took place and accused Carroll of making it up to help sell her book and launched his appeal, as Breitbart News reported.
He also said his accuser was “not my type.”
More to come…
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