E. Jean Carroll Receives $5.63 Million From Trump as Years-Long Legal Battle Reaches New Chapter
The money is no longer tied up in a court-controlled account. More than three years after a federal jury ruled in E. Jean Carroll’s favor, the writer has received approximately $5.63 million connected to her civil case against President Donald Trump.
The payment covers the original $5 million damages award and interest accumulated during Trump’s appeals. Court records show the funds were transferred to Carroll’s legal team after a federal judge authorized their release over objections raised by Trump’s attorneys.
For Carroll, the transfer represents the first time she has collected money tied to the two civil verdicts she won against Trump. For the president, it marks a concrete financial consequence in a legal fight that began years before his return to the White House.
A Verdict Delayed but No Longer Unpaid
A Manhattan jury ruled in May 2023 that Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and later defaming her when he denied her account.
Jurors awarded Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Trump denied the allegations, maintained that he did not know Carroll, and repeatedly described the case as politically motivated.
Trump deposited millions of dollars into the federal Court Registry Investment System after the verdict. That arrangement functioned much like an escrow account, protecting the funds as his legal team challenged the judgment in federal court.
The appeals stretched across several years. Trump sought reviews before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and eventually asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case.
The Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal in June 2026, leaving the jury’s verdict intact. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan then ordered that the money, including accumulated interest, be released to Carroll.
Trump’s lawyers attempted to stop the transfer, arguing that he could suffer financial harm if Carroll spent or donated the money and the payment was later reversed. The request for an emergency block was denied, and the funds were released.
Carroll Confirms the Money Arrived
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, confirmed that her client received the damages payment. She emphasized that a unanimous nine-person jury had found Trump liable and awarded the money more than three years earlier.
Carroll acknowledged the transfer in her newsletter with a brief message: “The eagle has landed.” Her lawyers have indicated in court filings that she intends to place the money in an interest-bearing retirement account.
The final payment totaled approximately $5.63 million. The difference between that amount and the original verdict reflects interest added as the appeals continued.
That detail matters because civil judgments can grow considerably when payment is delayed. Appeals may postpone collection, but they do not necessarily freeze the financial cost attached to a judgment.
Trump’s legal team has continued to challenge the release and has signaled that further legal action may follow. Still, the money has now left the court-supervised account and reached Carroll’s side.
The Much Larger Judgment Is Still Unresolved
The $5.63 million transfer settles only one part of Carroll’s legal battle with Trump.
A separate Manhattan jury awarded her $83.3 million in January 2024 after finding Trump liable for additional defamatory statements. That award included compensation for reputational harm, emotional distress, and punitive damages intended to discourage similar conduct.
Trump briefly testified during that trial and continued to deny Carroll’s accusations. He later posted a bond exceeding the amount of the verdict to secure the judgment while his attorneys pursued an appeal.
An appeals court upheld the larger award, but Trump is expected to seek Supreme Court review. Until that process ends, the $83.3 million judgment remains a major unresolved financial and legal issue.
Together, the two juries awarded Carroll $88.3 million before interest. The newly released funds represent a relatively small portion of that total, but they are significant because they are the first amount she has actually collected.
A Case That Tested the Limits of Appeals
Carroll first publicly accused Trump in 2019, saying he attacked her during an encounter at the Manhattan department store decades earlier. Trump denied her account and made several public statements attacking her credibility.
She initially sued him for defamation. She later brought a separate battery and defamation case after New York temporarily opened a legal window allowing survivors to pursue civil claims that had previously fallen outside the statute of limitations.
The legal fights that followed examined questions involving presidential immunity, evidence from other women, Trump’s public statements and the standards governing civil sexual-abuse claims.
The 2023 jury did not find Trump liable for rape under the specific legal definition presented in the case. It did, however, find him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, a distinction that has sometimes been blurred in public discussion.
Trump has continued to call the proceedings a hoax and a politically driven use of the justice system. His representatives repeated that position after the payment was reported and insisted that the legal challenges would continue.
Carroll’s attorneys have presented the transfer differently. To them, it represents the enforcement of a verdict reached by ordinary jurors and upheld after years of review.
The payment does not end every dispute between Carroll and Trump. The larger judgment still hangs over the case, and Trump’s lawyers continue searching for ways to challenge the outcome.
But one important question has now been answered. The first verdict is no longer merely a number written in a court order. The money has been paid.
