Writer E. Jean Carroll arrived at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where former U.S. President Donald Trump was to arrive to ask a federal appeals court to overturn a $5 million jury verdict finding him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her, who accused Trump of raping her nearly three decades ago, in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 6, 2024.
Adam Gray | Reuters
A New York federal judge on Wednesday ordered that E. Jean Carroll be paid $5 million plus interest for damages from a jury verdict that held President Donald Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer.
The order came a day after Trump’s lawyers urged Judge Lewis Kaplan not to disburse nearly $5.8 million to Carroll from funds that president deposited three years ago with the court to satisfy the May 2023 jury award.
Kaplan, in his order Wednesday directing the money to be disbursed to Carroll, pointed to the language of an agreement between her and Trump that called for the money to be given her if the Supreme Court denied his request that it hear his appeal of the verdict in her favor.
The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request on June 29.
Kaplan’s order brushed aside arguments by Trump’s attorneys that Carroll cannot be paid the money unless the Supreme Court rejects the president’s new, long-shot bid for reconsideration of his petition that the high court take his appeal.
The Supreme Court very rarely grants such requests after having denied an initial petition.
Shortly after Kaplan ordered the release of the funds to Carroll from Manhattan District Court, Trump’s attorneys filed an appeal of the decision with 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team, in a statement on the order, said, “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. President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
CNBC has requested comment from Carroll’s lawyers on Kaplan’s order.
Trump’s lawyers, Josh Halpern and Michael Madaio, in their filing Tuesday told Kaplan, “Collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case.”
“Paragraph 8 [of the agreement] does not permit collection while the rehearing petition remains unresolved,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump’s attorneys also argued that another reason Carroll should not get any money yet is that the agreement includes language requiring Trump to be repaid the money he deposited if the verdict is reversed.
Carroll “has repeatedly stated that she intends to give away all funds that she collects from him, and once those funds are distributed to third parties, they likely cannot be recovered,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
Trump’s related new petition to the Supreme Court says a rehearing is warranted because Trump will soon ask the high court to hear arguments on whether he has immunity from another lawsuit by Carroll over statements he made about her while president.
Trump also lost that case in Manhattan federal court, where a jury in January 2024 ordered him to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defaming her when he strongly denied her 2019 allegation of being raped by him in a New York department store in the mid-1990s.
And if he has immunity in that case, the lawyers said it could undercut the verdict in the other case that led to the $5 million verdict because Carroll’s attorneys introduced evidence of those same statements at that other trial, in addition to statements he made while out of the White House in 2022.
That $5 million verdict relates to the same allegations that Trump attacked her and statements he made about her in 2022 when he was out of the White House.
Trump listed both verdicts as liabilities in his 2025 financial disclosure report released last month.
Carroll’s lawyers in a court filing last week argued she was entitled to automatically receive that award, plus accrued interest, because the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s petition for a writ of certiorari, which would have led to a hearing on his appeal.
The court, which includes three justices appointed by Trump, did not note any dissents to that denial, and did not explain its reasons for rejecting Trump’s request.
“This is the end of the line,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told Judge Kaplan, who is not related to her, in a June 30 filing asking him to release the money to the writer.
“It is time for him to pay Carroll,” Roberta Kaplan wrote.
“A petition for rehearing is likely to fail,” Kaplan wrote. “Requiring Carroll to endure further delay while Defendant seeks rehearing would both be profoundly unfair and undermine the public interest.”
Kaplan on Tuesday had filed with the court a proposed order for the disbursement of the money from the court’s registry.
Trump’s lawyers, in their filing Tuesday night, said Carroll was jumping the gun in asking to be paid now.
They pointed to language in the agreement the parties signed in 2023 to have the court hold Trump’s money pending his appeals.
“Paragraph 8 permits collection only “[a]fter the latest of” three specified appellate events,” Trump’s lawyers noted.
“One of those events is the final denial of a petition for certiorari,” or granting a hearing of an appeal, by the Supreme Court, the lawyers wrote.
“And another is the Supreme Court’s entry of an order after granting certiorari “in connection with the Appeal,” Trump’s lawyers said.
“Both provisions confirm that collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case.”
