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US President-elect Donald Trump faced a major setback on Monday after a federal appeals court upheld a jury verdict ordering him to pay $5 million for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
During a nine-day civil trial last year, a New York jury found that the president-elect had sexually abused Carroll at a Manhattan department store in 1996.
According to news agency AFP, Trump was ordered to pay $2 million for sexual abuse and another $3 million for defaming Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine.
Trump, however, refuted the allegations and appealed the verdict on the grounds that two other women who said Trump had sexually assaulted them too should not have been allowed to testify.
Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, said the Republican would lodge a further appeal against the $5 million damages awarded in the sexual abuse and defamation case.
"The American People have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate," Cheung said in a statement.
"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 Carroll Hoax, which will continue to be appealed," he said.
The three-judge panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. "We conclude that Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings," they were quoted as saying.
The panel said Trump has not carried his “burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial.”
Carroll was awarded $83 million by another jury in a separate case she brought against Trump.
Two federal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith have been dismissed since he won the November 5 presidential election.
Trump was accused of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election but Smith dropped the cases under a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
(With inputs from agencies)
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