President Trump has paid E. Jean Carroll the $5.6 million in damages a federal judge ordered him to fork over after a civil jury found him liable for sexual assault and defamation in 2023, a key milestone in the high-profile and long-running dispute.
The payment — representing the $5 million jury award, plus interest — was made Monday from an account where it had been held in escrow since the verdict, according to court records. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, confirmed the payment Tuesday.
“We are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment,” Kaplan said in a statement.
Trump deposited the money in an escrow account shortly after the jury ruled against him three years ago. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis Kaplan to release the money.
Trump’s lawyers then sought but were denied an emergency order to block the payment. The one-sentence denial set no conditions on how Carroll may use the money. Her lawyers have said in court papers that she plans to put it in a retirement account. Once the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Trump’s appeal, Kaplan said the President needed to pay Carroll.
“Defendant has been stalling this case for years. A jury unanimously concluded that he sexually abused and defamed plaintiff and awarded her damages accordingly,” Kaplan wrote last week in a memo summarizing his reasoning.
“It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment.”
In papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court under the wire before midnight on July 7, Trump’s attorneys insisted to Judge Kaplan that he hadn’t reached the end of the line. They said that he had asked the nation’s highest court to reconsider its recent decision and that the money could not be distributed until he got an answer.
But Kaplan said Trump was effectively asking the court to redraft in his favor a deal he agreed to years ago. The judge’s July 8 memo noted the Supreme Court petition was more than a long shot, writing, “Few are filed, and successful filings are extremely rare birds.”
Trump’s lawyers have vowed to continue appealing.
The president has separately been ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million for additional instances of defamation, which were central to the original lawsuit she filed against him in 2019 and decided separately from the sexual abuse case. He is similarly appealing that outcome, but it hasn’t reached the Supreme Court.
Following a weekslong civil trial in the spring of 2023, Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting Carroll inside a Midtown department store in 1996 and subsequently defaming her. Jurors heard testimony about the violent attack from Carroll, a bestselling author and former TV host, from friends she confided in about the assault. They also heard from other women who alleged Trump had assaulted them in similar incidents.
After the verdict, the damages were deposited in a court-controlled account, where they remained as Trump petitioned one judge after another to overturn the verdict. After accruing interest, the sum is now closer to $6 million, according to court papers.
Trump insisted nothing sexual happened between him and Carroll, now 82. Trump claimed she was “totally lying” and “not my type” in a 2019 interview. He said he didn’t know her, dismissing a 1987 photo of them and their then-spouses at a party as inconsequential, and he accused her of harboring political motives and trying to sell books at his expense.
Trump didn’t attend the trial, where Carroll testified that their flirtatious and friendly chance encounter at the department store turned violent.
Carroll sued Trump after New York changed its laws to give sexual abuse survivors a fresh chance to sue over attacks that happened in the distant past.
The White House press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
