The writer E. Jean Carroll arrives at the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where former U.S. President Donald Trump was due to appear to ask the federal appeals court to overturn a jury’s verdict finding him guilty of sexual assault and defamation, in New York, September 6, 2024.
Adam Gray | Reuters
A New York federal judge on Wednesday ordered that E. Jean Carroll was awarded $5 million plus interest in damages for a jury verdict that held President Donald Trump civilly liable for sexual harassment and defamation of the author.
The order came a day after Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Lewis Kaplan to not release nearly $5.8 million from Carroll in money that Trump filed in court over the past three years to satisfy a May 2023 jury award.
Kaplan, in his Wednesday order ordering the money to be given to Carroll, pointed to language in the agreement between Carroll and Trump that calls for the money to be given if the Supreme Court rejects his request to hear his appeal of the decision in his favor.
The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s appeal on June 29.
Trump’s attorney on Wednesday afternoon asked the appeals court to pause Kaplan’s order.
The judge’s order rejected arguments by Trump’s lawyers that Carroll would not be paid the money unless the Supreme Court rejected the president’s new, long-running appeal to have the high court take up his appeal.
The Supreme Court rarely grants such applications after rejecting the original application.
Shortly after Kaplan ordered the release of funds from Carroll in Manhattan District Court, Trump’s lawyers appealed the decision to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. They later asked an appeals court to stay Kaplan’s order.
A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team, in a statement of the order, said, “The American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the atrocities, including the corruption sponsored by the Democratic Republic of the Carroll Hoaxes. President Trump will continue to win against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
CNBC has requested comment from Carroll’s attorneys on Kaplan’s order.
Trump’s attorneys, Josh Halpern and Michael Madaio, in their filing Tuesday told Kaplan, “The collection will not begin while the trial is pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently pending.”
“Section 8 [of the agreement] it does not allow collection while the request for a rehearing is pending,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump’s lawyers also said another reason why Carroll isn’t getting paid right now is that the agreement includes language that requires Trump to return the money he deposited if the decision is overturned.
Carroll has “repeatedly stated that he intends to withdraw all of the money he collects from himself, and once those funds are transferred, they will never be recovered,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
A new Trump-related petition to the Supreme Court says a hearing is necessary because Trump will soon ask the high court to hear arguments that he is not immune from another lawsuit by Carroll about statements he made about himself while he was president.
Trump also lost that case in Manhattan federal court, where a judge in January 2024 ordered him to pay Carroll $83.3 million in defamation damages when he denied her 2019 allegations that he raped her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s.
And if he is not protected in that case, the lawyers said, it could reduce the verdict in another case that led to the award of five million dollars, because Carroll’s lawyers presented evidence of those same statements in the other case, in addition to the statements he made in 2022, when he was not president.
Trump listed both decisions as bills in his 2025 fiscal disclosure report released on June 30.
Carroll’s attorneys in the court filing last week argued that he is entitled to that award automatically, along with accrued interest, because the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request for a writ of certiorari, which would have led to a hearing on his claim.
The court, made up of three judges appointed by Trump, did not see any objections to the rejection, and did not explain its reasons for rejecting Trump’s request.
“This is the end of the line,” Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told Judge Kaplan, who is not related to him, in a June 30 filing asking him to release the money to the author.
“It’s time for Carroll to pay,” wrote Roberta Kaplan.
“The request for a rehearing may not be successful,” Kaplan wrote. “Requiring Carroll to endure further delay while Defendant seeks a rehearing would be unfair and undermine the public interest.”
On Tuesday, Kaplan filed a proposed motion to have the money removed from the court docket.
Trump’s attorneys, in their filing Tuesday night, said Carroll was jumping the gun by asking to be paid now.
They pointed to language in the agreement the parties signed in 2023 that the court would seize Trump’s money pending his appeal.
“Section 8 allows collection only”[a]after the recent events of “three appeals,” Trump’s lawyers noted.
“One of those events is the final denial of a petition for certiorari,” or the granting of an appeal, by the Supreme Court, the lawyers wrote.
“And another entry of the Supreme Court’s order after granting certiorari” on appeal, said Trump’s lawyers.
“Both of these provisions ensure that collection cannot commence while proceedings are pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case.”
