NEW YORK — President Donald Trump will soon request that the Supreme Court dismiss a jury’s finding in a civil lawsuit that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and subsequently defamed her, his lawyers indicated in a recent court filing.
Trump’s lawyers outlined the plan while asking the high court to extend its deadline for contesting the $5 million verdict from September 10 to November 11. The president “intends to seek review” of “significant issues” stemming from the trial and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ subsequent decisions that upheld the verdict, according to his lawyers.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, stated on Wednesday: “We do not believe that President Trump will be able to present any legal issues in the Carroll cases that merit review by the United States Supreme Court.”
Carroll provided testimony at a 2023 trial, asserting that Trump turned a friendly interaction in the spring of 1996 into a violent episode in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury store opposite Trump Tower. The jury also held Trump accountable for defaming Carroll when he made statements in October 2022 denying her accusation.
A three-judge appellate panel upheld the verdict last December, dismissing Trump’s claims that trial Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s rulings tainted the trial, including by permitting testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual abuse. These women alleged that Trump performed similar actions against them in the 1970s and in 2005. Trump denied all three women’s allegations.
In June, 2nd Circuit judges denied Trump’s request for the entire appellate court to reconsider the case. This left Trump with two options: accept the outcome and allow Carroll to collect the judgment, which he had previously paid into escrow, or pursue the matter in Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority – including three of his own appointees – that may be more receptive to reviewing his appeal.
Trump skipped the 2023 trial but testified briefly at a follow-up defamation trial last year that ended with a jury ordering him to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million. The second trial resulted from comments then-President Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first made the accusations publicly in a memoir.
Judge Kaplan presided over both trials and instructed the second jury to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually abused Carroll. Judge Kaplan and Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, are not related.
In their deadline-related filing, Trump’s lawyers said Kaplan compounded his “significant errors” at first trial by “improperly preventing” Trump from contesting the first jury’s finding that he had sexually abused Carroll, leading to an “unjust judgment of $83.3 million.”
The 2nd Circuit heard arguments in June in Trump’s appeal of that verdict but has not ruled.
Trump has had recent success fending off costly civil judgments. Last month, a New York appeals court threw out Trump’s staggering penalty in a state civil fraud lawsuit.
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.
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