Judge orders Trump's $5m damages be released to E Jean Carroll

Key developments are emerging from the global stage. Judge orders Trump's $5m damages be released to E Jean CarrollImage source, Getty ImagesByMadeline HalpertPublished8 July 2026, 18:47 BSTUpdated 11 minutes agoA judge has ordered that writer E Jean Carroll be paid the more than $5m (£3. 7m) US President Donald Trump owes her after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her in a civil case three years ago. Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday ordered that a clerk release the money - with interest - from an account where Trump deposited it after the ruling.

Trump was pushing to delay the $5. 8m payment to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to hear an appeal of the case. In May 2023, a New York jury awarded Carroll the damages over her claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, and then branded the incident a hoax on social media.

The Details

Trump denied the allegations. The has contacted Trump's attorneys for comment. Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 82, accused Trump of attacking her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, and later defaming her on Truth Social in a 2022 post denying her allegations.

Trump put the damages into a court-controlled account shortly after the verdict, and it was held there while the appeals process played out. The judge did not say when the funds would be released to Carroll. The president has repeatedly claimed that the judge who oversaw the civil trial, Lewis Kaplan, improperly allowed evidence to be presented that negatively affected how the jury viewed Trump.

A federal appeals court agreed with the jury's verdict last year and said Kaplan did not make errors that would warrant a new trial. Trump has also appealed against another jury's decision in 2024 finding the president liable for defaming Carroll in a separate instance and awarding her nearly $84m. A panel of federal judges denied his appeal against that decision last year.

The development has drawn wide international attention, with diplomatic circles watching closely.