Trump Brazenly Tries to Defy Order to Finally Pay Sex Victim
The president is still denying reality in the E. Jean Carroll case.
President Donald Trump has filed a fresh appeal to not fork over a $5.8 million payment he owes writer E. Jean Carroll in her sexual abuse and defamation case against him.
Trump, 80, filed a notice on Wednesday appealing a federal judge’s decision that ordered him to pay up, which he has refused to do for three years since Carroll, 82, secured a decisive legal win that the Supreme Court refused to toss out last month.
E. Jean Carroll pushed back on claims that she had been motivated to speak up against Trump for financial gain.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in New York ruled that Carroll can collect the multimillion-dollar payment held in escrow since a jury found that Trump sexually abused and later defamed her. Carroll was originally awarded $5 million, but that amount has since grown to $5.8 million with interest.
Trump’s team swiftly filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Carroll has promised to use the money to fund things Donald Trump hates.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Asked about Kaplan’s order, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement to NBC News that “the American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes.”
Lawyers for Carroll, meanwhile, told the outlet that she had already waited long enough.
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In 2023, a jury found that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store in 1996, then defamed her when she described the incident in a memoir released in 2019, during his first term as president.
The Supreme Court handed the president a humiliating loss last month when it announced that it would not hear Trump’s appeal of the verdict against him.
Trump has consistently denied the assault, saying Carroll is “not my type.” He has also refused to pay the judgment, arguing in filings submitted Tuesday that Carroll should not receive the money until the conclusion of a renewed Supreme Court bid to have the case thrown out.
Trump’s legal team also argued in this week’s filing that he would suffer an “unrecoverable loss” if he is forced to pay Carroll the millions in damages.
The president’s team also said Carroll’s previous statements show she intends to “give away all funds that she collects from him,” making the money more difficult to recover if Trump ultimately prevails.
Trump’s lawyers argued that keeping the funds in a court-supervised escrow account until the Supreme Court fully rejects Trump’s appeal would “completely protect” Carroll while avoiding “irreparable harm” to the president.
“Plaintiff loses nothing that cannot be compensated by interest; President Trump faces the real risk of losing funds that will likely never be recovered,” the filing states.
In January 2024, a separate jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defaming her in 2019 while denying her allegations that he sexually abused her in the Manhattan department store. Trump is also appealing that judgment in a case that could ultimately reach the Supreme Court.
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