Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll $5m after Supreme Court denies sex abuse verdict appeal

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court won’t step in and stop President Donald Trump from having to pay $5 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexually abusing and defaming her, despite his argument that a president shouldn’t be burdened with defending himself against decades-old charges.

The court on June 29 declined to review the 2023 jury verdict against Trump in a civil suit brought by Carroll.

The court – which has a 6-3 conservative majority − has been largely receptive to Trump’s appeals of challenges to his actions as president, often allowing controversial policies to move forward while they’re being litigated.

But Trump’s appeal of the verdict in the Carroll case was the first time since his return to office that he asked the court to weigh in on a personal legal issue.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, the court’s ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts weakened and delayed the federal criminal case against Trump for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped the charges after Trump won the 2024 election because the Justice Department bars prosecutions of sitting presidents.

`Mistreatment of a president'

Although Carroll’s suit against Trump involved events long before his presidency and is a civil – not criminal – case, Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court that it’s “deeply damaging to the fabric of our Republic for President Trump, in the midst of a historic presidency, to have to take his focus away from his singular and unique duties as Chief Executive to continue fighting against decades-old, false allegations and the myriad wrongs throughout this baseless case.”

“This mistreatment of a President cannot be allowed to stand,” they wrote in a filing.

Trump’s lawyers argue Carroll waited more than 20 years to bring her “implausible, unsubstantiated assertions” in order to “maximize political injury to him and profit for herself.”

“Notably, Carroll’s allegations are a story that precisely matches the plotline from an episode of one of admittedly her favorite TV shows, `Law & Order,’” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the appeal.

They said the jury should not have been allowed to hear from two other women who alleged Trump assaulted them or to review the 2005 “Access Hollywood” recording of Trump bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.

Appeals court ruled against Trump

The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Trump's argument that the trial judge erred in permitting that evidence. And even if the judge got it wrong, the appeals court ruled in 2024, “taking the record as a whole and considering the strength of Ms. Carroll's case, we are not persuaded that any claimed error or combination of errors in the district court's evidentiary rulings affected Mr. Trump's substantial rights.”

The trial was not the only one Trump lost to Carroll.

In 2024, a New York jury said Trump had to pay Carroll $83.3 million over comments he made disputing the veracity of Carroll's claims. He filed three appeals of that judgment and the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals rejected each one.

Trump's lawyers have said they are preparing a Supreme Court appeal in that case.

What did E. Jean Carroll allege in her lawsuits?

Carroll said in 2019 that Trump sexually assaulted her at a New York City department store in 1996, and Trump fired back with allegations that she was making up the story to sell her book.

Carroll sued him months later, eventually winning the $83.3 million judgment.

As the case was ongoing, Trump repeated the denial in a 2022 social media post. Carroll then sued Trump again under a special window of time that New York granted to sexual abuse survivors, and in 2023, a New York jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against Carroll. This resulted in the $5 million verdict.