By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal appeals court on Monday refused to throw out an $83.3 million jury verdict against U.S. President Donald Trump for damaging the reputation of the writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019 when he denied her rape claim.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected Trump’s argument that the January 2024 verdict should be overturned because he deserved presidential immunity from Carroll’s lawsuit.
The 2nd Circuit on June 13 upheld Carroll’s separate $5 million jury verdict against Trump in May 2023. That jury had found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not for rape.
Both verdicts were among a slew of legal woes Trump, a Republican, faced after leaving the White House in 2021. Trump has denied all wrongdoing, and on the campaign trail portrayed his courtroom battles as part of a Democratic-led plot to harm his ultimately successful 2024 campaign.
Now serving a second term as president, Trump is continuing to appeal unfavorable legal judgments, including his criminal conviction for falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal and a judge’s finding that he was liable for fraud in a civil case over his family company’s business practices.
In its unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit said that the $83.3 million verdict was reasonable “in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case.”
In a statement on Monday, Trump’s legal team said, “President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he is focusing on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
Carroll, 81, a former Elle magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room.
Trump first denied her claim in June 2019, telling a reporter that Carroll was “not my type” and had concocted the story to sell her memoir “What Do We Need Men For?”
He essentially repeated his comments in an October 2022 Truth Social post, leading to the $5 million verdict, though the jury did not find that Trump had raped Carroll.
The $83.3 million award comprised $18.3 million of damages for emotional and reputational harm, and $65 million of punitive damages.
The judges noted that Trump’s attacks on Carroll ramped up as the trial approached.
“The conduct here supports a significant punitive damages award,” the court wrote. “It involved malice and deceit, caused severe emotional injury, and continued over at least a five-year period.”
Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan in a statement said: “We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done.”
In his latest appeal, Trump argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 2024 decision providing him with substantial criminal immunity shielded him from liability in Carroll’s civil case.
He also said he had spoken about Carroll in 2019 in his capacity as president, and that failing to give him immunity could undermine the independence of the Executive Branch.
Trump also said U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw both trials, had made other mistakes, including by striking out his testimony that, in speaking about Carroll, “I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly the presidency.”
In June, Carroll released another memoir, “Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President,” about her legal battles against Trump.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; additional reporting and writing by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Bill Berkrot)
