President-elect Trump on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to reconsider a jury’s verdict finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, insisting the trial was tainted by improper evidence.
Trump asked the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case after a three-judge panel on the court upheld the $5 million verdict late last month.
The new filing offers a full-throated rejection of Carroll’s claims that Trump sexually assaulted her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s, calling her story “decades-old, facially implausible, politically motivated allegations.”
“Carroll waited over 20 years to falsely accuse President Trump, did so at a time calculated to injure him politically and profit herself, and told a story that precisely matches a plotline from one of her favorite TV shows,” the filing reads.
Trump’s lawyers’ appeal revolves around arguments that the trial judge wrongfully allowed jurors to hear from two other women who accused the former president of sexual misconduct and listen to the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump is heard discussing grabbing women sexually without their consent.
“Taken together, these errors will result in the erroneous admission of inflammatory propensity evidence in many future cases, resulting in unjust verdicts based on passion and prejudice instead of the law and evidence,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the petition.