E. Jean Carroll receives $5.6 million payment from Trump in civil case

By ED SHANAHAN and JONAH E. BROMWICH

President Donald Trump has paid writer E. Jean Carroll $5.6 million he owed her after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing her in a New York City department store in the 1990s and then defaming her, federal court records show.

The money, which had been held in escrow while Trump appealed the jury’s 2023 award, was disbursed to Carroll last week, according to a note added Tuesday to the online court docket in the case.

The payment came after the U.S. Supreme Court declined the president’s latest attempt to appeal the verdict, which prompted the judge overseeing the case to order that the money be released to Carroll.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement that she and her client were “pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of that verdict.”

The White House press office referred a request for comment to Trump’s personal lawyers.

Aaron Harison, a spokesperson for the legal team representing Trump in the matter, said in a statement that “the American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll hoaxes.”

The judgment against Trump stemmed from a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York City in which Carroll, 82, accused the president of sexual abuse and of defaming her by calling the accusation “a Hoax and a lie” on social media.

In a unanimous verdict, the jury in the case awarded her $5 million. With interest, the sum had grown to $5.625 million as of last week.

Trump, who has consistently denied knowing Carroll much less abusing her, placed the money in a court-supervised account while he pursued appeals. That effort ended last month when the Supreme Court, without citing a reason and with no public dissent, denied his request that it review the matter.

Trump, 80, continued to rail against Carroll after the Supreme Court’s decision, writing on Truth Social that her suit was “a Fake Case.”

After the court declined to consider the case, Carroll immediately asked the federal judge overseeing it to order the president to pay what he owed. She asserted that Trump had “consistently sought to obstruct and delay payment” of the jury’s award.

In a ruling issued Wednesday, the judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, agreed.

“In the last analysis, defendant has been stalling this case for years,” Kaplan wrote. He cited the jury’s verdict, that it had been upheld on appeal and that the Supreme Court had decided not to review the matter. It was time, he said, for Trump to “pay the judgment.”

Another case involving Carroll’s allegations against the president remains unresolved and could also end up at the Supreme Court.

In 2024, a separate federal jury in New York City ordered Trump to pay her $83.3 million after concluding that he had defamed her in 2019. His lawyers have said he may ask the justices to review the verdict.