Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll asked a judge Tuesday to require President Donald Trump to pay her $5 million from a jury verdict that concluded Trump sexually abused her in the 1990s and defamed her after she publicly described the attack in 2019.
Lawyers for Carroll filed papers in Manhattan federal court to say Trump is unjustly trying to further delay the release of the money after the Supreme Court refused Monday to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil jury verdict.
The amount has grown to nearly $5.8 million with interest and should be required by the court to be disbursed, the lawyers wrote, saying Trump has resumed his defamatory attacks against Carroll as his lawyers considered asking the high court to reconsider its decision.
The Case
The jury reached its verdict in a trial that Trump did not attend after Carroll testified that she was sexually abused by Trump in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a midtown Manhattan luxury department store after a flirtatious and friendly chance encounter between them turned violent.
Carroll, 82, first talked about the attack publicly in 2019 while Trump was president. He repeatedly insisted that he never knew Carroll. He also accused her of trying to sell books at his expense and having political motives.
The Supreme Court Decision
Trump promised on social media Monday to keep fighting what he called a “Weaponization and Lawfare Case” after the Supreme Court’s rejection became known. Lawyers for Trump contacted Carroll’s attorneys minutes after Trump published his response, asking that the payout be delayed while the Supreme Court is asked to reconsider its decision.
But Carroll’s lawyers — Roberta Kaplan, D. Brandon Trice, and Maximilian T. Crema — said in their court filing that there was no reason to delay the payment, especially since the Supreme Court expressed no division in its decision not to hear the case.
“To date, Carroll has agreed to each of Defendant’s many requests to delay the payment he owes her. Given the extraordinary lengths he has taken to avoid such payments and that each of those efforts has been denied in full, that cooperation ends today. It is time for him to pay Carroll,” they wrote.
Additional Damages
Trump is also appealing $83 million in defamation compensation granted to Carroll from a separate Manhattan jury after a January 2024 trial at which Trump briefly testified. At that trial, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan required the jury to accept the findings of the previous jury and only determine how much money, if any, Trump owed Carroll for comments he made about her as president.
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Bottom Line
E. Jean Carroll has demanded that President Trump pay her nearly $5.8 million after the US Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal of a civil jury verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Carroll’s lawyers said Trump is unjustly trying to further delay the payment and that his cooperation has ended. Trump is also appealing an additional $83 million judgment in a separate defamation case.
