The American judge clears E. Jean Carroll to collect $5.8M in Trump sexual assault, defamation lawsuit
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The writer E. Jean Carroll can collect US$5.8 million stashed in a bathroom after a judge found that US President Donald Trump sexually assaulted and defamed her, a judge ruled Wednesday. Trump's lawyers quickly asked the court to block the payment while they appealed.
The American president has already deposited money into the account. The United States Supreme Court recently allowed the 2023 court order to stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money. The first $5-million US prize has grown in interest.
The judge found that Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury department store in Manhattan, and humiliated her after he described it publicly in a 2019 memoir, during his first term as president. Trump called her allegations false and said he was “not my type.”
Trump's lawyers said Wednesday they would continue to appeal the case, and accused his political opponents of using the legal system against him. They are asking the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the payments. Carroll's attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The judge had reached his decision – in a trial that Trump did not attend – after Carroll revealed that their chance to flirt and be friendly at a department store turned violent. Trump has insisted he never knew Carroll, now 82, a former advice columnist. He accused him of trying to sell books at his expense and that he has political motives.
The US Supreme Court refused to listen to President Donald Trump's request regarding the US decision given to E. Jean Carroll. The ruling leaves the jury's finding that Trump sexually harassed and defamed Carroll, as well as a lower court ruling that upheld the ruling.
Carroll was sued after NY changed the laws
Carroll sued Trump after New York changed its laws to give sexual assault survivors a new chance to sue over past assaults.
Trump also filed a claim for $83 million in defamation damages awarded to Carroll by a separate Manhattan judge after the 2024 trial in which Trump testified briefly.
In that case, Kaplan required jurors to accept the previous judge's findings and decide only how much, if any, Trump owed Carroll for comments he made about him while he was president.
Trump's lawyers complained that the judge, in setting the rules for the damages trial, prevented Trump and his legal team from telling the judge that the meeting with Carroll never happened.
When the 2nd Circuit refused to allow all of its judges to rehear the appeal of the $83 million award, District Judge Denny Chin wrote that Trump had said many times over the years that Carroll had lied for political and financial gain and had suggested she was too unlikable for Trump to sexually assault her.
“As a result of Trump's statements, Carroll was harassed and humiliated, received death threats, and feared for his physical safety for years,” Chin said. “And Trump showed no remorse, continuing his attacks on Carroll during and after the two federal trials, and even announcing two days into the Carroll I trial that he would continue to defame him 'a thousand times.'
