U.S. judge clears E. Jean Caroll to collect $5.8M from Trump sex abuse, defamation case

The author E. Jean charles lutwidge dodgson put up pick up $5.8 trillion US held in escrow since a jury found that U.S. President Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed her, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. Trump's lawyers immediately asked a court to block the payment while they appeal.

The U.S. President has already deposited the money in an account. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the 2023 civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money. The initial $5-million US award has grown with interest.

The jury found Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store, and defamed her after she described it publicly in a 2019 memoir, during his first term as president. Trump called her allegations false and has stated "she's not my type."

Trump's attorneys said Wednesday they would continue to appeal, and accused his political opponents of using the legal system against him. They want 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the payment. Carroll's lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The jury had reached its verdict — in a trial that Trump did not attend — after Carroll testified that their flirtatious and friendly chance encounter at the department store turned violent. Trump insisted he never knew Carroll, now 82, a former advice columnist. He accused her of trying to sell books at his expense and of having political motives.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects Trump's appeal in E. Jean Carroll case

Carroll sued Trump after New York changed its laws to give sexual abuse survivors a fresh chance to sue over attacks that happened in the distant past.

Trump is also appealing $83 million US in defamation compensation granted to Carroll by a separate Manhattan jury after a 2024 trial where Trump briefly testified.

Top federal prosecutor in Chicago denies opening investigation into E. Jean Carroll

At that trial, Kaplan required the jury to accept the findings of the previous jury and only determine how much money, if any, Trump owed Carroll for comments he made about her while he was president.

Trump's lawyers complained that the judge, in setting rules for the damages trial, had barred Trump and his defence team from telling the jury that the encounter with Carroll never happened.

When the 2nd Circuit declined to let all of its judges rehear an appeal of the $83-million US award, Circuit Judge Denny Chin wrote that Trump had said multiple times over many years that Carroll lied for political and financial gain and had suggested she was too unattractive for Trump to have sexually assaulted her.

"As a result of Trump's statements, Carroll was harassed and humiliated, subjected to death threats, and feared for her physical safety for years," Chin said. "And Trump showed no remorse, continuing his attacks against Carroll during and after two federal trials, and even proclaiming two days into the Carroll I trial that he would continue to defame her 'a thousand times."'

---

---