US appeals court denies challenge after 2023 civil jury trial found Trump sexually abused Carroll then defamed her

Donald Trump has lost his latest legal attempt to challenge the $5m in damages awarded against him for defaming E Jean Carroll, the New York writer who a jury found was sexually abused by the president in the 1990s, before he embarked on his political career.

A US appeals court in New York City on Friday denied Trump’s request to reconsider its decision in December to uphold the jury’s award of $5m to Carroll. The court was divided in its opinion, with two Trump-appointed judges, Steven Menashi and Michael Park, dissenting.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her around 1996 in a department store dressing room in Manhattan. In 2023, a civil jury trial concluded that Trump did sexually abuse her and then defamed her in 2022 when he denied the allegations as a hoax and said that Carroll was “not my type”.

The jury awarded Carroll, who is now 81, a total of $5m in compensatory and punitive damages. More than two dozen different women have accused Trump over the past decade of sexual assault.