On December 30, a U.S. federal appeals court upheld the $5 million verdict that author Jean Carroll won against Donald Trump when a jury found him guilty of sexually harassing and then defaming a former magazine columnist.
Points of attention
- The court rejected the appeal and upheld the decision finding Trump guilty of sexually harassing the famous writer.
- The Republican continues to deny all accusations.
Trump lost the appeal
According to American journalists, a panel of three judges of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan unanimously rejected the argument of the future US president.
Donald Trump argued that the trial judge had no right to give the jury the opportunity to hear evidence about the Republican's alleged past sexual crimes, making the trial and sentence unfair.
The judge said the evidence, including the politician's flaunting of his "sexual prowess" in an "Access Hollywood" video released during the 2016 presidential campaign, established a "repeated, idiosyncratic pattern of behavior" consistent with Carroll's allegations.
Considering the record as a whole and considering the strengths of Ms. Carroll's case, we are not persuaded that any alleged error or combination of errors in the district court's evidentiary rulings affected Mr. Trump's substantial rights.
Details of the sex scandal surrounding Trump
American columnist and writer Jean Carroll accused the Republican of rape back in 2019, when he was president.
However, it is important to understand that the case only began in April 2023.
The politician did not want to testify in court, but publicly repeated that he could not have raped Carroll because she was "not his type."
Against this backdrop, Donald Trump has been accused of harassment or rape by several other women, but the Carroll case was the first in which a verdict was reached.
In May 2023, the Manhattan Federal Court found Republicans guilty in a civil lawsuit brought by columnist and author Jean Carroll and ordered them to pay compensation for harassment and defamation.
