US President Donald Trump has paid writer E Jean Carroll more than $5 million (£3.7 million) in damages, following a civil case in which he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, confirmed the receipt of the payment in a statement on Tuesday, noting that her client has finally received the jury’s award, reports BBC.
Although the original damages were set at $5.62 million to account for interest accrued during the lengthy appeals process.
The case stems from allegations made by Carroll, an 82-year-old former magazine columnist, who stated that Trump attacked her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan during the mid-1990s.
She further sued for defamation regarding a 2022 post on Trump’s Truth Social platform, where he denied the allegations.
In 2023, a New York jury unanimously awarded the damages to Carroll. Trump had initially placed the money into a court-controlled account while he pursued various appeals.
However, the Supreme Court declined to consider the case last month, and the judge overseeing the proceedings recently ordered that the funds be released to Carroll.
Throughout the proceedings, Trump denied the allegations, with his legal team describing the case as a “hoax” and a “Witch Hunt” funded by the Democratic Party.
Trump also alleged that Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, improperly admitted evidence that prejudiced the jury against him. Despite these claims, a federal appeals court ruled last year that the judge did not make errors warranting a new trial.
Upon the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal, Carroll celebrated the outcome on her Substack blog, writing, “WE WON! THIS WIN IS FOR EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD!”.
A representative of Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the payment. This development follows a separate 2024 verdict in which Trump was found liable for defaming Carroll in a different instance and ordered to pay nearly $84 million; he is currently appealing against that decision.
