E. Jean Carroll is seeking a court order for Donald Trump to pay the $5 million in damages awarded by a jury after his request to have the U.S. Supreme Court review the case was denied. Carroll's legal team stated in a filing that "It is time for him to pay Carroll."
In May 2023, a New York jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll in the 1990s. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million for the civil claims. Trump has consistently denied the allegations.
Carroll's lawyers noted that they had previously agreed to Trump's requests for delays in payment, which, with accumulated interest, now amount to nearly $5.8 million. However, they asserted that after "four years of litigation across every level of the federal court system," all of Trump's efforts to avoid payment have been denied. "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," the lawyers wrote.
Trump had sought to delay payment while simultaneously asking the Supreme Court to hear his appeal. The Supreme Court's decision on Monday meant Trump's latest attempt to overturn the jury's verdict failed.
Following the Supreme Court's refusal to review the case, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, to reiterate his stance. He called the case "fake" and a "weaponization and lawfare case," vowing to continue fighting "the ridiculous claim of defamation, with all of my power and strength." Carroll's lawyers have included this recent post in their new filings.
The original accusations stem from Carroll's claim that Trump attacked her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. The defamation claim arose from a 2022 post on Truth Social where Trump denied her allegations, calling them a hoax.
A federal appeals court had previously upheld the jury's verdict from 2023, affirming that the judge presiding over the civil trial, Lewis Kaplan, did not make errors that would warrant a new trial. Trump has also appealed a separate jury decision from 2024 that found him liable for defaming Carroll and awarded her nearly $84 million. His appeal against that decision was denied by a panel of federal judges last year.