Trump's lawyers fight to overturn the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case

NEW YORK (AP) — As Donald Trump campaigns for the presidency, his lawyers are fighting to overturn a conviction that found him guilty of sexual assault and defamation.

Three judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled to hear arguments Friday in Trump's appeal of a jury's finding that he sexually harassed writer E. Jean Carroll, who says the Republican attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million.

Preparations for Trump's personal participation in the hearings have been underway for several days in a stately federal court in Lower Manhattan.

Trump's lawyers say the jury's verdict should be overturned because the trial admitted evidence that should have been excluded and because other evidence that should have been admitted was not admitted.

Trump, who denies attacking Carroll, did not attend the 2023 trial and expressed regret at not being there.

The court is unlikely to make a decision before the presidential election in November.

The civil case has both political and financial implications for Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, has sharply attacked Trump over the jury's verdict and repeatedly pointed out that he was found guilty of sexual assault.

And last January, a second jury awarded Carroll an additional $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump made about her during his presidency, saying those comments were defamatory. The jury had been instructed by the judge to accept the first jury's finding that Trump had sexually harassed Carroll. The second trial was held primarily to determine how badly Carroll had been harmed by Trump's comments and how severely he should be punished.

Trump, 77, testified for less than three minutes at the trial and was not allowed to challenge the jury's conclusions in May 2023. Still, he was animated in the courtroom during the two-week trial and jurors could hear him grumbling about the case.

The appeal against the outcome of this trial, which Trump immediately afterwards described as “absolutely ridiculous!”, will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.

Carroll, 80, testified in both trials that her life as a columnist for Elle magazine had been ruined by Trump's public comments, which had sparked such hatred against her that she had received death threats and was afraid to leave the cabin in upstate New York where she lives.

Trump's lawyers said in court filings that he deserves a retrial in part because trial judge Lewis A. Kaplan allowed two other women to testify about similar cases of sexual abuse they say Trump committed against them in the 1970s and in 2005.

They also argued that Kaplan wrongly excluded evidence that Carroll lied during her testimony, as well as other evidence that they said would reveal bias and motives for Carroll and other witnesses to lie against Trump. The ruling, they wrote, was “unjust and flawed” and resulted from “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary decisions.”

Trump insisted that Carroll made up the story about the attack to sell a new book and denied knowing her.

Trump's lawyers also objected to the repeated airing of a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which Trump said he sometimes just starts kissing beautiful women and “when you're a star, they let you do it.” He also said a star could touch women's genitals because “you can do anything.”

In their written arguments, Carroll's lawyers said Trump was wrongly demanding “a rehearing” based on unsubstantiated “blanket complaints of unfairness” and other “distortions of the record, misrepresentations or misapplications of the law, and a persistent disregard for the district court's reasoning.”

“There was no error here, let alone a violation of Trump's essential rights. This court should affirm that,” Carroll's lawyers said.