By Jack Queen and Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) -A lawyer for Donald Trump urged an appeals court docket to throw out a $5 million verdict discovering Trump accountable for sexually assaulting and defaming the author E. Jean Carroll, saying testimony from two different feminine accusers was improperly admitted at trial.
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, left the marketing campaign path to attend Friday’s listening to earlier than the 2nd U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals on whether or not the Might 2023 civil jury verdict ought to stand.
A lot of Friday’s arguments turned on whether or not the trial choose ought to have let jurors hear testimony from two different girls who stated the previous U.S. president sexually mistreated them many years in the past.
Trump’s lawyer John Sauer additionally objected to letting jurors see a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video the place Trump boasted graphically about forcing himself on girls.
“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible propensity evidence,” Sauer stated.
Carrying a blue swimsuit and pink tie, Trump confirmed little emotion through the arguments, however shook his head when Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan accused him of a sample of “chatting up” girls earlier than he “pounced” on them.
Friday’s panel of three judges, all appointed to the bench by Democratic presidents, didn’t say when it might rule.
TRUMP ATTACKS ‘RIDICULOUS CASE’
The decision stemmed from Trump’s encounter round 1996 with Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman division retailer dressing room in Manhattan, and an October 2022 Fact Social put up the place he referred to as Carroll’s declare a hoax.
Although jurors stopped wanting discovering that Trump raped Carroll, as she had claimed, they awarded the previous Elle journal recommendation columnist a respective $2.02 million and $2.98 million for sexual assault and defamation.
A distinct jury ordered Trump in January to pay Carroll $83.3 million for having defamed her and damaging her status in June 2019 after she first accused him of rape.
Trump, 78, has constantly denied wrongdoing.
In each denials underlying Carroll’s lawsuits, Trump stated he did not know Carroll, that she was “not my type,” and that she made up her story to advertise her memoir.
Talking to reporters after oral arguments, Trump steered with out proof {that a} decades-old picture of him and Carroll, by which he as soon as mistook Carroll for his second spouse Marla Maples, might have been generated by synthetic intelligence.
“It’s a ridiculous case,” Trump stated. “It’s political interference, it’s a witch hunt.”
Trump can be interesting the $83.3 million verdict.
Carroll, 80, additionally attended Friday’s arguments, sporting a darkish blazer and swimsuit with a navy blue hair ribbon. She and her attorneys didn’t speak with reporters after arguments ended.
‘HE SAID, SHE SAID’
Each trials had been overseen by U.S. District Choose Lewis Kaplan, who shouldn’t be associated to Roberta Kaplan.
Trump’s enchantment has centered on whether or not the choose erred in admitting testimony from Jessica Leeds, who stated Trump groped her on a aircraft within the late Seventies, and Natasha Stoynoff, who stated Trump forcibly kissed her at his Mar-a-Lago property in 2005.
Sauer referred to as the case “a quintessential he said, she said case” introduced by a girl with a political motive to harm Trump — Carroll is a Democrat — and funded by Trump’s enemies.
Circuit Choose Denny Chin cautioned, nonetheless, that “it’s very hard to overturn a jury verdict based on evidentiary rulings.”
Carroll’s lawyer Kaplan stated Trump had a behavior of letting “pleasant chatting” with girls spiral uncontrolled, after which forcefully denying their accusations he did something unsuitable.
Circuit Choose Susan Carney sought assurance from Kaplan that jurors weren’t swayed unduly by Leeds’ testimony, if her accusations proved “too remote (and) too unlike the circumstances that your client alleged.”
Kaplan stated she might. “I was going through the evidence at trial,” she stated. “It was incredibly powerful.”
Carroll’s instances are separate from a number of prison instances towards Trump, who has pleaded not responsible to all costs.
Trump has but to be sentenced in Manhattan state court docket, after being convicted in Might of falsifying enterprise information to cowl up a hush cash cost to silence porn star Stormy Daniels earlier than the 2016 election.
