A federal judge has ordered that writer E. Jean Carroll be paid the more than $5 million Donald Trump owes her. The judgment stems from a civil case in which a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll.
Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday directed the disbursement of the $5 million judgment, plus nearly $800,000 in interest, from an account where Trump had deposited the funds. Trump had sought to delay the payment while asking the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to hear his appeal of the case.
In May 2023, a New York jury awarded Carroll the damages related to her claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and subsequently called the incident a hoax. Trump has denied the allegations.
Carroll, a former magazine columnist, accused Trump of attacking her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. She also alleged that Trump defamed her on Truth Social in a 2022 post denying her claims.
The funds were held in a court-controlled account pending the outcome of the appeals process. A federal appeals court had previously affirmed the jury's verdict, finding that Judge Kaplan did not make errors warranting a new trial.
Separately, a jury in 2024 found Trump liable for defaming Carroll in another instance and awarded her nearly $84 million in damages. Trump is appealing that decision as well, though a panel of federal judges denied his appeal in that case last year. The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear his appeals in both matters.
Trump's attorneys have not commented on the latest order. The judge did not specify when the funds would be released to Carroll.