By Kara Scannell

(CNN) — A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $83.3 million jury award against President Donald Trump for defaming magazine writer E. Jean Carroll in 2019.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals said the jury award was “reasonable” given the evidence presented at trial.

“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,” the appeals panel of judges wrote.

The judges also rejected Trump’s effort to assert he had presidential immunity since he made the statements while in office.

The panel of three judges cited Trump’s repeated denials and public criticisms of Carroll, even after the first jury found his statements were defamatory, as a reason to uphold the punitive damages. Trump repeatedly said Carroll was “not my type” and suggested she made up claims of sexual assault to boost sales of a book.

“He made three of these attacks within 48 hours of the verdict in Carroll … and launched similar attacks against Carroll in the days and weeks leading up to this trial,” the panel wrote, adding that “given this extraordinary and unprecedented conduct,” the award “was neither unpredictable nor unreasonable in relation to the actual harm that had occurred and ‘the harm likely to result.’”

Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleged Trump raped her in a department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim. She sued Trump under a New York law allowing a look back at sexual assault claims, and in 2023, a jury awarded Carroll $5 million after finding Trump sexually abused and defamed her. A federal appeals court upheld that verdict. Trump has until November to ask the Supreme Court to hear the appeal.

The case that the federal appeals court upheld Monday is separate, and stems from remarks Trump made denying Carroll’s allegations in 2019. Trump testified briefly when that case went to trial in 2024, standing by his past denial of Carroll’s sexual assault allegation and saying he was there to defend himself, his family and the presidency.

The jury saw excerpts from a video deposition from 2022 of Trump disparaging Carroll calling her “a liar” and a “sick” person. The judge also allowed the jury to consider Trump’s comment calling Carroll a “whack job” during a CNN town hall just two days after the first trial.

That jury found Trump liable for defamation and ordered him to pay $83.3 million in punitive and compensatory damages. Trump previously posted a $92 million bond to cover the judgment.

Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, said after the decision Monday that “We look forward to an end to the appellate process so that justice will finally be done.”

“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,” Kaplan said.

Trump’s legal team demanded a “swift dismissal of all the Witch Hunts” against the president.

“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,” a spokesperson for his legal team said in a statement.

Trump is asking the full bench of 2nd Circuit judges to hear his request to have the Justice Department attorneys represent him in any future appeals, including potentially to the Supreme Court. Trump has argued he should be immune because he was acting within the scope of the presidency when he made the statements. Courts have previously denied this request.

Carroll has not yet responded to Monday’s ruling. Carroll published a book this year titled, “Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2025 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.