E. Jean Carroll arrives at Manhattan Federal Court in New York on January 26, 2024, as the defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump continues in New York City.
Spencer Pratt | Getty Images
Author E. Jean Carroll is seeking the immediate release of about $5.8 million in civil jury verdicts that held President Donald Trump accountable for sexual abuse and defamation, her lawyers said in a new court filing.
But Trump wants to delay it so he can potentially ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its refusal to hear the appeal Monday, according to filings in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Such requests are rarely granted.
And Carol flatly rejected her proposal to allow any further delay in salary payments.
“This is the end of the line,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, wrote in a filing Tuesday night with District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, asking him to order the release of funds set aside by Trump to satisfy a May 2023 jury verdict.
“To date, Carroll has agreed to each of the defendant’s numerous requests to delay payments due,” wrote Kaplan, who is not related to the judge. “Given that he has gone to great lengths to avoid such payments, and that those efforts have been flatly rejected, that cooperation ends today.”
“It’s time for him to pay Carol.”
The complaint cites Kaplan’s previous statement that President Trump has engaged in litigation tactics that suggest he has a “strong desire to delay” litigation, as well as a related lawsuit filed by Carroll against him.
“The petition for rehearing is likely to fail,” Kaplan wrote. “Requiring Carroll to endure further delays while the defendant seeks a new trial would be grossly unfair and would be detrimental to the public interest.”
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said: “The American people stand with President Trump in calling for an immediate end to all witch hunts, including the Democratic-funded farce of the Carroll hoax.”
“President Trump remains focused on his mission to make America great again and will continue to win against liberal legislation,” the spokesperson said on condition of anonymity.
Judge Kaplan on Wednesday ordered Trump’s lawyers to respond to Carroll’s motion to award the award to him by next Tuesday.
The jury in that case found that Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carroll in a Manhattan department store fitting room in the mid-1990s and defamed Ms. Carroll by denying the allegations when she went public 20 years later.
The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Since Mr. Trump deposited the funds with the court to secure the verdict pending appeal, the funds have earned nearly $800,000 in interest, and Mr. Carroll is entitled to the same.
The $5 million judgment was noted as a debt in President Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure report released Tuesday by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
The report points to separate liability from another Manhattan federal court jury that awarded Carroll $83.3 million for defaming Trump when he denied sexual assault. The ruling, which Trump continues to appeal, relates to the president’s comments about Carroll that are different from those that led to $5 million verdicts in other cases.
Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., September 6, 2024.
David Dee Delgado | Reuters
Mr. Trump unsuccessfully asked both Judge Kaplan and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the $5 million judgment.
And on Monday, the Supreme Court said it would not hear Trump’s appeal in the case.
Among the nine justices, there were no notable dissents to this decision. Three of them were appointed during President Trump’s first term.
Roberta Kaplan said in a new filing that shortly after the Supreme Court’s rejection, she wrote a post on Truth Social in which Trump “continued his defamatory attacks against Carroll.”
“Surprisingly, the Supreme Court refused to ‘review’ a sham lawsuit brought against me by a woman I’ve never met (decades old celebrity photos standing with her husband don’t count!”), Trump wrote.
Within minutes of posting, Mr. Trump’s lawyer contacted Mr. Carroll’s lawyer and asked whether they would agree to further delay enforcement of the award so that the president could “ask the Supreme Court to reconsider the denial of certiorari,” Mr. Kaplan wrote.
Certiorari is a term that means the Supreme Court agrees to review a lower court’s case.
Carroll’s lawyers told Trump’s team that Judge Kaplan’s preliminary order directed that the award be paid “upon the denial of the application for certiorari,” according to the filing.
Roberta Kaplan wrote that Trump’s lawyers “have made it clear that they are asking Carroll to agree to a ‘new stay or continuance’ of spending.”
Kaplan said he told Trump’s lawyers that Carroll did not agree to delaying the release of the funds.
He also asked whether President Trump would agree to stipulate the release of the funds. Trump’s lawyers responded that the president would not be able to answer that question by Thursday, according to the filing.
Kaplan wrote that there was no “practical or equitable reason” to delay funding to Carroll “based on the mere possibility of a theoretical review” by the Supreme Court.
He pointed out that the High Court only grants certification in “a few cases each year.”
“And rehearsal is an even more extraordinary remedy, permitted only in limited circumstances,” she wrote.
“There’s no reason to believe the Supreme Court would recognize that here.”
