Why did Trump pay E. Jean Carroll $5.63 million?

Writer E. Jean Carroll has received nearly $5.63 million from US President Donald Trump after winning a civil lawsuit that found him liable for

Writer E. Jean Carroll has received nearly $5.63 million from US President Donald Trump after winning a civil lawsuit that found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her. The payment includes the original $5 million awarded by a jury, along with interest that accumulated during the legal process.

The money was released to Carroll’s legal team after a federal judge approved the transfer from a court-supervised account. The payment was made despite Trump’s efforts to stop the release through an emergency appeal.

The legal battle began after Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s inside a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City. Trump repeatedly denied the allegation. He said he did not know Carroll and claimed she invented the story to promote her memoir. He also described the lawsuits as politically motivated and part of a campaign against him.

In May 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and later defaming her by denying her claims. However, the jury did not find him liable for rape under New York law. It awarded Carroll $5 million in damages for the harm she suffered.

Trump challenged the verdict through the appeals process, but the US Supreme Court recently declined to hear his appeal. That decision allowed the judgment to remain in effect and cleared the way for Carroll to receive the money.

Before the payment was released, Trump’s lawyers argued that transferring the funds would cause “irreparable harm.” They claimed Carroll had previously expressed an intention to donate the money and warned it could become impossible to recover if Trump later succeeded in court. Carroll later informed the court that she planned to keep the money in an interest-bearing account to help fund her retirement.

This is the first time Trump has been required to pay Carroll, even though she has won multiple court cases against him. Combined, the judgments in her favor now total $88.3 million.

In a separate defamation case decided in 2024, another jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million for statements he made in 2019 while serving as president. Those remarks were found to have damaged Carroll’s reputation after she publicly accused him of sexual assault.