Former US President Donald Trump is appealing a New York jury’s $5m decision awarded a magazine columnist for Trump’s 1990s sexual abuse and October defamation. On Thursday, Manhattan federal court filed a notice of appeal to transfer E Jean Carroll’s civil complaint against Trump to a three-judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals. After Tuesday’s conviction, Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina signed the notice, saying there were several compelling grounds for appeal. After three hours of deliberations, the nine-person jury found Carroll had failed to establish Trump had raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in early spring 1996. But she was sexually molested.
In October, Trump defamed Carroll on social media, the decision stated. Carroll sued Trump in November, minutes after a temporary New York state legislation allowed sexual assault victims to sue decades-old offenders. After Trump defamed her again on prime time TV this week, Carroll is mulling fresh claims. At a CNN “town hall” meeting on Wednesday, Trump told news anchor Kaitlan Collins that Carroll was a “wack job” who fabricated the assault, to Republican applause. Trump criticized Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan, who ruled over his case. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, told the New York Daily News she was “thinking about it” after Trump’s statements. Trump’s lawyer Tacopina didn’t comment on the anticipated lawsuit. Trump’s attorneys said that “notice is hereby given that Defendant Donald J Trump appeals” to the 2nd Circuit in the lower court notice of appeal filed Thursday. Judge Kaplan presided over the trial. Tacopina wrote: “Judge Kaplan has been overturned once already in Carroll v Trump. We believe it will be twice after this appeal.” He was referring to Kaplan’s refusal to replace the US for Trump in Carroll’s defamation action for Trump’s presidential comments. Trump was declared a federal employee by the 2nd Circuit, but the appeal is ongoing.
Trump’s verdict came after a two-week trial in which Carroll testified that he had sexually assaulted her in the luxury department store’s dressing room after a lighthearted and flirtatious chance encounter that took them from the store’s entrance to the desolate sixth-floor lingerie area, where Trump invited Carroll to help him shop for a gift. Her 2019 memoir revealed her experience when Trump was president. She alleged his angry public response ruined her image, cost her a 27-year Elle magazine position, and subjected her to nasty social media assaults from his fans. Republican presidential candidate Trump skipped the trial.
