E. Jean Carroll and her attorneys Sean Crowley and Roberta Kaplan react outside Manhattan federal court after the verdict in the second civil trial in which she claims she was raped by former U.S. President Donald Trump decades ago, January 26, 2024, in New York City.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
Author E. Jean Carroll was paid more than $5.6 million as part of a federal civil jury’s verdict holding President Donald Trump accountable for sexual abuse and defamation, a court filing revealed Tuesday.
An online filing notice in Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump in U.S. District Court in Lower Manhattan shows that $5,625,005.48 was paid to Carroll’s attorney’s law firm on July 9. The total amount consists of the $5 million in damages awarded in the May 2023 jury verdict, plus post-judgment interest accrued over the following three years.
A source close to Carroll confirmed to CNBC that the funds were transferred to him.
“Three years ago, a unanimous jury of nine found President Trump liable for the sexual assault and defamation of E. Jean Carroll,” Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told CNBC in a statement.
“Today, we are pleased to report that as a result of that verdict, she has received the damages that the jury awarded her,” Kaplan said.
Trump’s lawyers in the case did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The day before the funds were to be disbursed, Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to pay Carroll, rejecting Trump’s last-ditch effort to avoid the payment, noting that Trump had “stalled this case for years.”
Later the same day, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York rejected Mr. Trump’s request to block the recovery of funds he deposited more than three years ago following a jury verdict.
Trump was convicted of sexually abusing Carroll at the Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s and then defamed her in 2019 after she went public with claims about the encounter.
In a separate federal civil case centered on a defamation claim, a Manhattan jury in January 2024 ordered President Trump to pay Carroll a total of $83.3 million in damages.
Trump has vehemently denied Carroll’s claims and has filed numerous appeals in both cases. In late June, the Supreme Court refused to hear President Trump’s appeal from his sexual abuse and defamation convictions.
President Trump continues to challenge his civil libel judgment in a lower federal appeals court.
— CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
