NEW YORK — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that E. Jean Carroll may now receive the $5.8 million that was set aside following a jury’s determination that President Donald Trump sexually abused her in 1996 — before he became president — and later defamed her after she went public with her account of the attack.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan signed an order releasing the funds to Carroll, along with interest that has accumulated since the original verdict. Carroll’s legal team had sought the disbursement after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up an appeal of the 2023 civil verdict. Trump had already paid the money into a holding fund while the appeals process played out, pending a final court order.
Even as Trump’s attorneys were weighing whether to ask the high court to reconsider its decision, Trump had resumed making defamatory statements against Carroll, according to the record in the case.
Attorneys representing both sides did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
The jury delivered its verdict in a trial that Trump chose not to attend. Carroll testified that Trump sexually assaulted her inside the dressing room of an upscale Manhattan department store, describing how what began as a chance, friendly encounter turned violent.
Carroll, who is 82 years old, first spoke publicly about the alleged attack in 2019 in a memoir she published while Trump was serving as president. Trump repeatedly denied ever knowing Carroll and accused her of fabricating the story to sell books and advance a political agenda.
Separately, Trump is appealing an $83 million defamation judgment that a different Manhattan jury awarded Carroll following a January 2024 trial, at which Trump briefly took the stand. In that proceeding, Judge Kaplan instructed the jury to accept the findings from the earlier trial as established fact and focus solely on determining the amount of damages Trump owed Carroll for statements he made about her during his presidency.
