Trump pays writer E Jean Carroll $5m in damages over sexual abuse and defamation

Trump pays writer E Jean Carroll $5m in damages over sexual abuse and defamation

US President Donald Trump has paid writer E Jean Carroll more than $5m (£3.7m) in damages three years after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her in a civil case, her lawyers confirmed.

"Today, we are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of that verdict," Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, said in a short statement on Tuesday.

Trump was pushing to delay the payment, in order to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to hear his appeal of the case. But last week, the judge overseeing the case ordered him to pay the damages.

A representative from Trump's legal team declined to comment on the payment.

A statement from Carroll's legal team confirmed that she had been paid more than $5.62m - the $5m awarded in damages plus the interest accrued during the appeal.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 82, accused Trump of attacking her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, and later defaming her on his Truth Social website in a 2022 post denying her allegations.

In 2023, a New York jury unanimously awarded Carroll the damages over her claim. Trump denied the allegations.

Trump put the damages into a court-controlled account shortly after the verdict, and it was held there while the appeals process played out.

Lawyers for Trump decried the judge's ruling that he must pay, calling the case a "hoax" and "Witch Hunt" which they alleged had been funded by Democrats.

Trump has repeatedly alleged that Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the civil trial, improperly admitted evidence that prejudiced the jury against him.

A federal appeals court agreed with the jury's verdict last year and said Kaplan did not make errors that would warrant a new trial.

The Supreme Court last month declined Trump's request to consider the case, clearing the way for the money to be paid to Carroll.

Carroll cheered the ruling at the time, writing on her Substack blog: "WE WON!"

"THIS WIN IS FOR EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD!" Carroll wrote.

Trump has also appealed against another jury's decision in 2024 finding the president liable for defaming Carroll in a separate instance and awarding her nearly $84m. A panel of federal judges denied his appeal last year.