A federal judge Wednesday ordered that E. Jean Carroll receive the $5 million awarded to her by a jury that found President Donald Trump had sexually abused and defamed her.
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The order, which Trump quickly appealed, came after the U.S. Supreme Court last week declined his petition to take up the case.
Carroll, a writer, had in 2019 accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s. Trump responded with repeated denials and verbal attacks on Carroll, leading her to file two civil lawsuits against him.
After the first lawsuit went to trial in 2023, jurors awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. The outcome was upheld by a federal appeals court panel in 2024. The Supreme Court let the judgment stand and did not offer an explanation about why it did not take the case.
In a two-page order filed Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in New York pointed to the Supreme Court’s denial in concluding that Carroll should receive the money and interest that had accrued. After Kaplan’s order, Trump’s attorneys filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
Carroll’s other lawsuit against Trump went to trial in early 2024, leading to a much larger financial penalty for him. The jury in that case ordered Trump to pay Carroll more than $83 million for defaming her, a judgment that was upheld by an appeals court.
In a filing on Wednesday asking the Supreme Court to reconsider denying his appeal of the $5 million case, an attorney for Trump said it was needed because he “imminently” planned to ask the justices to hear his appeal of the $83 million case. Trump’s appeal of the $83 million case “will overwhelmingly likely bear on the proper disposition” of the $5 million one, the filing stated.
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Attorneys for Carroll and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the filings Wednesday.
Trump has roundly criticized Carroll, her cases against him and the verdicts in them, deriding Carroll’s allegations as fiction.
During one of her cases against Trump, Carroll testified that his rhetoric had damaged her reputation and prompted a torrent of harassing, threatening messages.
The day after the Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal in the $5 million case, attorneys for Carroll wrote in a court filing that it was “time for this case to end.” Carroll was entitled to the judgment plus interest, which amounts to more than $5.7 million in total, the attorneys wrote.
There was no need to further delay paying her, the lawyers said, adding that the Supreme Court was unlikely to reconsider its action. Carroll had agreed to repeated delays in receiving the payment, the attorneys continued, but “that cooperation ends today.”
Attorneys for Trump, meanwhile, wrote Tuesday that the money should not be disbursed until the Supreme Court weighs in on Trump’s latest request. If the money is disbursed, they said, Trump faces an “unrecoverable loss,” because Carroll has said she plans to give away the money, so it “likely cannot be recovered.”
