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- Attorneys for President Donald Trump urged a New York federal judge not to disburse $5 million to E. Jean Carroll to satisfy a 2024 civil verdict holding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer.
- Trump’s lawyers said that money cannot be released unless and until the Supreme Court rejects the president’s long-shot bid for reconsideration of his petition that the high court take his appeal of that verdict.
- The Supreme Court on June 29 denied the petition without any noted dissents.
Writer E. Jean Carroll arrived at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where former U.S. President Donald Trump was to arrive to ask a federal appeals court to overturn a $5 million jury verdict finding him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her, who accused Trump of raping her nearly three decades ago, in Manhattan, New York, U.S., September 6, 2024.Adam Gray | Reuters
Attorneys for President Donald Trump in a late Tuesday night court filing urged a New York federal judge not to disburse nearly $5.8 million to E. Jean Carroll to satisfy a May 2023 civil verdict holding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer.
Trump’s lawyers said that money cannot be released to Carroll under an agreement unless and until the Supreme Court rejects the president’s new, long-shot bid for reconsideration of his petition that the high court take his appeal of that verdict.
The Supreme Court very rarely grants such requests after having denied an initial petition to take an appeal, as it did on June 29 in saying it would not hear Trump’s appeal.
Trump’s lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court for a rehearing of its denial, according to the new filing, which included a copy of that request, dated Monday.
“Collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case,” Trump’s lawyers Josh Halpern and Michael Madaio said in the filing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
“Paragraph 8 [of the agreement] does not permit collection while the rehearing petition remains unresolved,” the attorneys wrote, referring to a stipulation by the parties to hold $5.5 million deposited by Trump with that court as security as he appealed the $5 million verdict in Carroll’s favor.
With accrued interest, Carroll’s lawyers say she is owed almost $5.8 million. Trump listed the verdict as a liability in his 2025 financial disclosure report released last month.
Trump’s attorneys also argued that another reason Carroll should not get any money yet is that the agreement includes language requiring Trump to be repaid the money he deposited if the verdict is reversed.
Carroll “has repeatedly stated that she intends to give away all funds that she collects from him, and once those funds are distributed to third parties, they likely cannot be recovered,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
Trump’s related new petition to the Supreme Court says a rehearing is warranted because Trump will soon ask the high court to hear arguments on whether he has immunity from another lawsuit by Carroll over statements he made about her while president.
Trump also lost that case in Manhattan federal court, where a jury in January 2024 ordered him to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defaming her when he strongly denied her 2019 allegation of being raped by him in a New York department store in the mid-1990s.
And if he has immunity in that case, the lawyers said it could undercut the verdict in the other case that led to the $5 million verdict because Carroll’s attorneys introduced evidence of those same statements at that other trial, in addition to statements he made while out of the White House in 2022.
That $5 million verdict relates to the same allegations that Trump attacked her and statements he made about her in 2022 when he was out of the White House.
Carroll’s lawyers argue she is entitled to receive that award, plus accrued interest because the Supreme Court denied his petition to hear Trump’s appeal last week.
The court, which includes three justices appointed by Trump, did not note any dissents to that denial, and did not explain its reasons for rejecting Trump’s request.
“This is the end of the line,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to her, in a June 30 filing asking him to release the money to the writer.
“It is time for him to pay Carroll,” Roberta Kaplan wrote.
“A petition for rehearing is likely to fail,” Kaplan wrote. “Requiring Carroll to endure further delay while Defendant seeks rehearing would both be profoundly unfair and undermine the public interest.”
Earlier Tuesday, Kaplan filed with the court a proposed order for the disbursement of the money from the court’s registry. Judge Kaplan could sign that order if he agrees with Carroll’s lawyers that there is no legal reason to delay paying her.
But Trump’s lawyers, in their new filing Tuesday night, said Carroll is jumping the gun in asking to be paid now.
They point to language in the agreement the parties signed in 2023, under which Trump deposited $5.5 million with the court as security for the verdict while his appeals of it were pending.
“Paragraph 8 permits collection only “[a]fter the latest of” three specified appellate events,” Trump’s lawyers noted.
“One of those events is the final denial of a petition for certiorari,” or granting a hearing of an appeal, by the Supreme Court, the lawyers wrote.
“And another is the Supreme Court’s entry of an order after granting certiorari “in connection with the Appeal,” Trump’s lawyers said.
“Both provisions confirm that collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case.”
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