By Kara Scannell and Lauren del Valle | CNN
Former President Donald Trump is appealing the $5 million judgment awarded by the Manhattan federal jury that found he sexually abused and defamed former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
Trump’s lawyers filed the notice of appeal in the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, hours after federal Judge Lewis Kaplan filed a written ruling endorsing the jury verdict and ordering Trump to pay Carroll the full sum. Kaplan presided over the civil trial in New York.
Trump had previously indicated he planned to appeal.
In a further development Thursday, in the wake of Trump’s continued insults against Carroll in his CNN town hall Wednesday night, the New York Times is reporting that Carroll may sue him again.
Trump’s comments on CNN came one day after a jury in Manhattan awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after finding Trump liable for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s and liable for defaming her last year when he described her claim of assault as a “complete con job,” a “Hoax and a lie” in a social media post.
“It’s just stupid, it’s just disgusting, vile, foul, it wounds people,” Carroll said in an interview with The New York Times, adding that she had been “insulted by better people.”
Carroll alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York in the spring of 1996 and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book.
The jury found him liable for battery based on the sexual assault claim, that he should pay about $2 million in damages to Carroll for the civil battery claim and that he should pay her nearly $3 million in damages for successfully proving her defamation claim against him.
While the jury found that Trump sexually abused her, sufficient to hold him liable for battery, the jury did not find that Carroll proved he raped her.
Trump denied all claims brought…
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