A US Federal Appeals Court on Monday mandated President-elect Donald Trump to pay $5 million for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
A New York jury discovered after a nine-day civil trial last year that Trump had sexually abused Carroll at a Manhattan department store in 1996.
The court ordered Trump to pay $2 million for sexual abuse and another $3 million for defaming Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine.
However, Trump denied the allegations, appealing the judgment because two other women who said he had sexually assaulted them too should not have been allowed to testify.
The three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals, however, disagreed with the appeal.
“We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings.
“Further, he has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial,” they said.
Carroll was awarded $83 million by another jury in a separate case she brought against the business tycoon turned politician. He has also appealed that verdict.
Two federal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith have been dismissed since he won the November 5 presidential election.
The US president-elect was accused of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election but Smith dropped the cases under a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Judge Juan Merchan recently rejected a bid by the president-elect to have his conviction thrown out but has postponed sentencing indefinitely.
