A federal judge has authorized the disbursement of $5.8 million to E. Jean Carroll, stemming from a 2023 civil verdict in which a jury found that former President Donald Trump sexually abused her in 1996 and subsequently defamed her.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued an order on Wednesday allowing the payment, including accrued interest, to be made to Carroll. Her legal team had sought the disbursement after the U.S. Supreme Court declined last month to hear an appeal of the 2023 verdict.
Trump had continued to make public statements critical of Carroll as his lawyers contemplated further appeals. The jury's initial verdict came from a trial that Trump did not attend. Carroll testified during that trial that the alleged sexual abuse occurred in a Manhattan department store dressing room following a chance encounter.
Carroll, 82, first shared her account of the alleged assault publicly in 2019 through a memoir published while Trump was president. At the time, Trump repeatedly denied knowing Carroll and accused her of having political motivations and attempting to profit from her accusations by selling books.
This $5.8 million award is separate from another judgment of $83 million in defamation damages granted to Carroll by a different Manhattan jury in January 2024. In that subsequent trial, Judge Kaplan instructed the jury to accept the prior findings of sexual abuse and defamation and to focus solely on determining the amount of damages owed for comments Trump made about Carroll while he was president. Trump is also appealing this larger award.