A federal appeals court has upheld a jury’s decision ordering President Donald Trump to pay $83.3 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her through repeated social media attacks after she accused him of sexual assault.
In a ruling issued Monday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn the verdict, stating that the jury’s award was “fair and reasonable.”
The case could be taken up by the Department of Justice, Trump’s attorneys said.
Newsweek reached out to the DOJ for further comment via contact form on Monday morning.
Why It Matters
The multimillion-dollar judgment stemmed from Carroll’s civil defamation case, in which jurors found Trump liable for repeatedly disparaging her after she alleged he assaulted her in a department store during the 1990s.
The decision comes in addition to a $5 million award Carroll won in 2023, when a separate jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation.
Associated Press
What To Know
In their decision issued Monday morning, Appeals Court Judges Denny Chin, Sarah Merriam, and Maria Araujo Kahn said that Trump had “failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity.”
The justices upheld their earlier decision in the case, meaning the president still has to pay Carroll the money the court ruled he owed her. The 70-page ruling affirmed that the court was correct in imposing such a fine to prevent Trump from further defaming Carroll.
The case is linked to another involving the writer and the president, in which a New York City jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in 1996, and awarded her $5 million. The president was also found liable for defaming Carroll over her allegations.
Trump has fought the rulings, but the courts have upheld their decisions, including denying a request for a new trial.
Reacting to Monday’s decision, Trump’s legal team told CNN in a statement that they wanted to see the “swift dismissal of all of the witch hunts” against the president.
Carroll v. Trump
In a memoir, and again at a 2023 trial, Carroll described how an encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman’s Fifth Avenue in 1996 started with the two flirting as they shopped, then ended with a violent struggle inside a dressing room. Carroll said Trump forced himself on her.
A jury found Trump liable for sexual assault, but concluded he hadn’t committed rape, as defined under New York law.
Trump repeatedly denied that the encounter had taken place and accused Carroll of fabricating it to help sell her book. He also said that Carroll was “not my type.”
The 2023 jury awarded Carroll $5 million to compensate her for both the alleged attack and the statements Trump made denying that it had happened.
After that first verdict, the court held a second trial with a new jury to determine damages for additional statements Trump made attacking Carroll’s character and truthfulness.
Trump had skipped the first civil trial, but he attended the second, which took place as he was running for president in 2024. Speaking to reporters throughout the trial, Trump portrayed the lawsuit as part of a broader effort to smear him and prevent him from regaining the White House.
His lawyers complained that the judge, in setting rules for the second, damages trial, had barred Trump and his defense team from claiming in front of the jury that he was innocent of the attack. The judge ruled that the issue had been settled by the first jury and didn’t need to be revisited.
What People Are Saying
Roberta Kaplan, E. Jean Carroll’s attorney, in a statement shared with Newsweek: “Earlier today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, in a comprehensive 70-page ruling, that E. Jean Carroll was telling the truth, and that President Donald Trump was not.
“The Court also upheld the $83.3 million award of damages because, among other things, Donald Trump had been “recklessly indifferent” to E Jean Carroll’s ‘health and safety,’ given that she ‘was subjected to a multitude of death threats and other threats of physical injury.’ We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done.”
Judges Chin, Merriam, and Kahn, in their decision: “We hold that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s duly rendered damages awards were reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case. For the reasons set forth above, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.”
President Donald Trump’s legal team, in a statement to CNN: “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes, the defense of which the Attorney General has determined is legally required to be taken over by the Department of Justice because Carroll based her false claims on the President’s official acts, including statements from the White House.”
What Happens Next
The case may now be taken up by the U.S. Department of Justice.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
Update 9/8/25, 12:02 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
