NEW YORK: A US judge on Wednesday approved the payment of a multimillion-dollar judgment to magazine writer E Jean Carroll to satisfy a 2023 civil judgment in which a jury found President Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation of her.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ordered the payment of nearly $5.8 million to the former Elle magazine advice columnist, representing the original $5 million judgment plus interest.
The funds had been held in escrow while Trump appealed the ruling, but the US Supreme Court declined on June 29 to take up the Republican president’s case. None of the nine justices, including three appointed by Trump, noted the dissent.
Trump appealed Kaplan’s order to the federal appeals court in Manhattan, less than an hour after the judge issued it.
“The American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes,” a spokesman for Trump’s lawyers said in a statement.
Attorneys for Carroll had no immediate comment.
Trump’s lawyers warn of ‘weaponization’ of the justice system
In a filing Tuesday night, Trump’s lawyers said Carroll should wait to collect damages until the Supreme Court reviews Trump’s renewed attempt to overturn the verdict.
The lawyers said Trump would be irreparably harmed and face “irreparable loss” if Carroll follows through on her stated intent to give the money away, because once she does, the money will likely be unrecoverable.
They also said it would “undermine public confidence in an orderly judicial process” to allow Carroll to recover, only to have the Supreme Court grant a rehearing, at a time when Trump’s supporters and some critics are expressing “concerns about politically motivated weaponization of the justice system,” according to his lawyers.
Trump filed a petition with the Supreme Court on Wednesday to reopen his appeal. The Supreme Court rarely takes up cases after first dismissing them.
Trump plans second appeal
Carroll, 82, and Trump, 80, have battled in court for nearly seven years after Carroll first publicly accused the president of raping her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Trump has dismissed Carroll’s claims as a hoax and “fraud,” denying he knew her and saying she made up the alleged rape to help sell her memoir.
Jurors awarded Carroll $5 million based on a denial by Trump in 2022, although they did not find that Trump raped her.
Another jury in January 2024 ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages based on his original denial in 2019, which occurred during his first term in the White House.
Trump has said he deserves presidential immunity for that rejection.
Last September, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan declined to throw out the $83.3 million judgment.
Trump plans to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court, and his lawyers said a successful appeal could undermine the basis of the $5 million judgment.
Carroll has accused Trump of stopping both lawsuits to avoid accountability.
