A different jury ordered Trump in January to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her and damaging her reputation in June 2019, when he first denied her rape claim.
In both denials, Trump said he did not know Carroll, she was “not my type,” and that she fabricated the rape claim to promote her memoir. He is appealing the $83.3 million verdict.
EVIDENCE SHOWN IN COURT REVEAL A ‘PATTERN’
Carroll’s cases continue despite Trump’s winning a second four-year White House term on Nov. 5.
In 1997, in a case involving former President Bill Clinton, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that sitting presidents have no immunity from civil litigation in federal court over actions predating and unrelated to their official duties as president.
Trump’s lawyers argued the $5 million verdict should be thrown out because the trial judge, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, should not have let jurors hear testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct.
One, businesswoman Jessica Leeds, said Trump groped her on a plane in the late 1970s. The other, former People magazine writer, Natasha Stoynoff, said Trump forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005.
Trump’s lawyers also said the trial judge should not have let jurors watch the 2005 “Access Hollywood” video, where Trump boasted graphically about forcing himself on women.
But the court said that in each of these encounters, “Mr Trump engaged in an ordinary conversation with a woman he barely knew, then abruptly lunged at her in a semi-public place and proceeded to kiss and forcefully touch her without her consent.”
It said this was “relevant to show a pattern tending to directly corroborate witness testimony and to confirm that the alleged sexual assault [of Carroll] actually occurred.”
The court also rejected Trump’s claim that Kaplan should have allowed evidence that a prominent Democratic critic, billionaire LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, funded Carroll’s case, saying it had “little probative value.” Carroll is also a Democrat.
Kaplan also oversaw the trial that ended with the $83.3 million verdict.
