Supreme Court refuses Trump’s appeal of E. Jean Carroll’s $5-million sexual abuse verdict
WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court on Monday rejected without comment President Trump’s appeal of a $5 million jury verdict in his sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan nearly 30 years ago.
None of the judges expressed a dissenting opinion.
When Carroll recounted the incident in a book, Trump called it a “hoax and a lie,” prompting him to file a second defamation lawsuit.
Trump and his lawyers He argued that he was unfairly held responsible because jurors heard two other women say Trump groped them. And they listened to Trump’s remarks about his willingness to harass women.
“When you’re a star… you can do anything,” Trump said in the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape that jurors heard.
Trump defended these comments in a statement used during the hearing in 2022.
“Historically, this has been true for stars as well,” he said. “If you look at the last million years, I guess that’s largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”
Often the defendant’s prior misconduct is excluded from the jury trial.
But in 1994, Congress changed the federal rules of evidence to create an exception for civil cases involving allegations of sexual abuse. Rule 415 says the judge “may admit evidence that the party committed another sexual assault.”
In Trump’s case, the U.S. appeals court in New York said the rule “permits the jury to consider a different set of sexual assault evidence to fully show that the defendant had a propensity or tendency to commit sexual assault.”
Two women testified that Carroll told them about the attack in the locker room shortly after. And two other women testified that Trump assaulted and groped them.
Carroll testified over three days at the hearing. Trump did not attend the meeting and chose not to testify.
Federal rules say judges can exclude “tendency evidence” if they decide that its value is “substantially exceeded by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of issues, or danger of misleading the jury.”
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, allowed the use of disposition evidence, and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his decision in December 2024, shortly after Trump was elected to a second term.
Lawyers for the Missouri law firm founded by Attorney General D. John Sauer filed an appeal in November urging the court to review the Trump v. Carroll case and hold a new trial.
They said Carroll’s allegations were “seemingly implausible and politically motivated” and that his case was “fundamentally based on evidence of improper disposition that courts normally reject.”
They devoted much of their appeal to arguing that the court should take up the case because the justices are divided on when propensity evidence should be excluded.
But they also called on the court to intervene, saying Trump was being mistreated by judges in New York.
“It is deeply damaging to the fabric of our Republic that, in the midst of a historic presidency, President Trump has had to turn his focus away from his singular and unique duties as Chief Executive to continue fighting against decades of false allegations and countless falsehoods throughout this baseless lawsuit,” they wrote.
Trump is also appealing a separate but related defamation verdict that ordered him to pay Carroll $83 million.
