A US court has ordered that author E. Jean Carroll be paid $5.8 million (€5 million) in damages, years after a jury found US President Donald Trump guilty of sexual assault and defamation.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan ruled that the money, which had long been held in escrow, be released to the former Elle magazine columnist.
“The defendant has been delaying this case for years,” Kaplan wrote in detailing his decision. “It is time for them to ‘make up’ and pay the judgment,” the memo said.
This comes after the US Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal in 2023 against the original verdict, which ordered him to pay $2 million in damages for sexual assault and $3 million for defamatory statements.
The remaining $800,000 is interest earned.
The 82-year-old woman first accused Trump of assaulting her in a New York City department store in a memoir published in 2019. Trump was completing his first term as President at that time.
He accused her of making false allegations, denied knowing her and said in an interview that “she’s not my kind”.
Trump tried to stop payment
Lawyers representing the US President said they would continue to appeal and claimed the decision was part of a political conspiracy.
“The American people stand with President Trump as he demands an immediate end to all witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll hoax,” a spokesperson said in a statement after Kaplan’s order.
In appellate papers, they argued that Kaplan’s decision should not be executed because Trump had asked the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision.
Late Wednesday, a judge on the US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected their request to stop the money being transferred.
“Carroll has waited more than three years to be paid the jury verdict. He should not have to wait any longer,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote in a filing with the appellate court.
“It’s time for this matter to end,” he wrote.
Trump is also appealing a decision by a separate Manhattan jury in 2024 to pay Carroll $83.3 million in the defamation case.
Edited by: Natalie Muller