Trump files appeal over E Jean Carroll sexual abuse and defamation case

Magazine writer considering new defamation filing after former US president made disparaging comments on TV

Donald Trump speaks with reporters while in flight on March 25. AP

Former US president Donald Trump on Thursday filed a notice of appeal after a federal jury in Manhattan found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million in damages.

Ms Carroll, 79, sued Mr Trump, 76, in 2022, alleging that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s, and then defamed her by denying it happened.

Following a two-week trial, the jury found Mr Trump liable in the civil case for abuse and defamation but not rape, after just under three hours of deliberations.

Mr Trump's lawyer Joseph Tacopina had previously said he would appeal the verdict.

His notice of appeal to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals was filed hours after US District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a ruling awarding Ms Carroll the judgment and closing the case.

In a televised town hall on Wednesday, Mr Trump made several disparaging comments about Ms Carroll that elicited applause and laughter from the audience of New Hampshire Republicans and independents who plan to vote in the state's Republican primary.

He called her a "whack job" and said: “What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes, you're playing hanky-panky in a dressing room?”

And on Thursday, Ms Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan — who is no relation to the judge — revealed in a New York Times interview that she is considering filing a new defamation lawsuit over those recent comments.

"Everything’s on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it," Ms Kaplan told the newspaper.

Reuters contributed to this report