Trump’s lawyers are fighting to overturn the jury’s verdict that found he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll

NEW YORK (AP) — As Donald Trump campaigns for the presidency, his lawyers are fighting to overturn a verdict that found him guilty of sexual assault and defamation.

Three judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled to hear arguments Friday in Trump’s appeal of a jury verdict that found he sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll, who says the Republican attacked her in a department store fitting room in 1996. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million.

Preparations have been underway for several days at a stately federal courthouse in lower Manhattan for Trump to attend the arguments in person.

Trump’s lawyers say the jury’s verdict should be overturned because evidence that should have been excluded was allowed in the trial and other evidence that should have been allowed was excluded.

Trump, who has denied attacking Carroll, did not attend the 2023 trial and has expressed regret at not being there.

The court is unlikely to issue a ruling before the presidential election in November.

The civil case has both political and financial implications for Trump.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris criticized Trump for the jury’s verdict, repeatedly saying he had been found guilty of sexual assault.

And last January, a second jury awarded Carroll another $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump had made about her while he was president, finding them defamatory. The judge had ordered that jury to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll. The second trial was held in large part to determine how much Trump’s comments had harmed Carroll and how severely he should be punished.

Trump, 77, testified for less than three minutes at the trial and was not allowed to refute the jury’s findings in May 2023. Still, he was animated in the courtroom throughout the two-week trial and jurors could hear him complain about the case.

The appeal of the outcome of that trial, which Trump immediately afterward called “absolutely ridiculous,” will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.

Carroll, 80, testified during both trials that her life as an Elle magazine columnist was ruined by Trump’s public comments, which she said sparked such hatred against her that she received death threats and was afraid to leave the cabin in upstate New York where she lives.

Trump’s lawyers said in court papers that he deserves a new trial in part because the trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, allowed two other women to testify about similar acts of sexual abuse they say Trump committed against them in the 1970s and in 2005.

They also argued that Kaplan wrongly dismissed evidence that Carroll lied during her testimony and other evidence that they claim would reveal bias and motives to lie on behalf of Carroll and other witnesses against Trump. The verdict, they wrote, was “unfair and erroneous,” the result of “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary decisions.”

Trump has insisted that Carroll fabricated the story about the attack to sell a new book and has denied knowing it.

Trump’s lawyers also questioned the repeated release during the trial of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump is heard saying that he sometimes starts kissing beautiful women and that “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” He also said that a star can grab women’s genitals because “you can do anything.”

In their written arguments, Carroll’s lawyers said Trump was wrongly demanding “a second chance” based on unfounded “broad claims of unfairness” and other “distortions of the record, misstatements or misapplications of the law, and a steadfast disregard for the district court’s reasoning.”

“There was no error here, much less a violation of Trump’s fundamental rights. This court should uphold that,” Carroll’s lawyers said.

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