NEW YORK — A lawyer for former President Donald Trump fought Friday to overturn a verdict finding him liable for sexual abuse and slander, telling federal appeals judges that the civil trial in a lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll was muddied by improper evidence.
“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, attorney D. John Sauer said, noting that the jury was allowed to consider such items as the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted years ago about grabbing women’s genitals.
The Republican presidential nominee’s motorcade arrived Friday morning at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where three judges were hearing arguments in his appeal of a jury’s finding that he sexually abused Carroll. She says Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996. Trump denies it. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.
Trump’s lawyers say the jury’s verdict should be tossed because evidence was allowed at trial that should have been excluded and other evidence was excluded that should have been permitted.
Trump did not attend the 2023 trial and has expressed regret he was not there.
The court is unlikely to issue a ruling before November’s presidential election.
The civil case has both political and financial implications for Trump.
Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has jabbed at Trump over the jury’s verdict, noting repeatedly that he had been found liable for sexual abuse.
And last January, a second jury awarded Carroll another $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump had made about her while he was president, finding that they were defamatory. That jury had been instructed by the judge that it had to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll. The second trial was largely held to determine how badly Carroll had been harmed by Trump’s comments and how severely he should be punished.
Trump, 77, testified less than three minutes at the trial and was not permitted to refute conclusions reached by the May 2023 jury. Still, he was animated in the courtroom throughout the two-week trial, and jurors could hear him grumbling about the case.
The appeal of that trial’s outcome, which Trump labeled “absolutely ridiculous!” immediately afterward, will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.
Carroll, 80, testified during both trials that her life as an Elle magazine columnist was spoiled by Trump’s public comments, which she said ignited such hate against her that she received death threats and feared going outside the upstate New York cabin where she lives.
Lawyers for Trump said in court papers that he deserves a new trial in part because the trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, permitted two other women to testify about similar acts of sex abuse they say Trump committed against them in the 1970s and in 2005.
They also argued that Kaplan wrongly disallowed evidence that Carroll lied during her deposition, and other evidence they say would reveal bias and motives to lie for Carroll and other witnesses against Trump. The verdict, they wrote, was “unjust and erroneous,” resulting from “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings.”
Trump has insisted that Carroll made up the story about being attacked to sell a new book. He has denied knowing her.
Trump’s lawyers also challenged repeated airing at trial of an “Access Hollywood” videotape from 2005 in which Trump is heard saying that he sometimes just starts kissing beautiful women and “when you’re a star they let you do it.” He also said that a star can grab women’s genitals because “You can do anything.”
In their written arguments, Carroll’s lawyers said Trump was wrongly demanding “a do-over” based on unfounded “sweeping complaints of unfairness” and other “distortions of the record, misstatements or misapplications of the law, and a steadfast disregard of the district court’s reasoning.”
“There was no error here, let alone a violation of Trump’s substantial rights. This Court should affirm,” Carroll’s lawyers said.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed.
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