Judge orders E. Jean Carroll be paid $5.8M after jury found Trump sexually abused and defamed her

NEW YORK (AP) — E. Jean Carroll can be paid the $5.8 million that was set aside after a jury found three years ago that President Donald Trump sexually abused her in 1996 before he became president and defamed her after she publicly revealed the attack, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued an order that says the money can be paid to Carroll, along with interest that has grown since the verdict. Carroll’s lawyers had requested the disbursement after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil verdict. Trump has already paid the money, which was set aside in a fund during the appeals process pending a court order.

Trump had resumed defamatory attacks against Carroll as his lawyers considered asking the high court to reconsider its decision.

Both sides’ attorneys did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The jury reached its verdict in a trial that Trump did not attend after Carroll testified that she was sexually abused by him in the dressing room of a luxury department store in Manhattan, after a flirtatious and friendly chance encounter between them turned violent.

Carroll, 82, first talked about the attack publicly in 2019 in a memoir while Trump was president. He repeatedly insisted that he never knew Carroll. He also accused her of trying to sell books at his expense and having political motives.

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

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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 as president.