Trump lawyers seek consent to postpone $5 million Carroll judgment
President Trump's legal team asked writer E. Jean Carroll for permission to delay the $5 million damages award, while her attorney moved to expedite payment after the Supreme Court declined Trump's appeal.
President Donald Trump's attorneys contacted writer E. Jean Carroll on Monday to request her consent to postpone the $5 million damages awarded by a 2023 jury in her sexual-abuse and defamation case. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said she informed Trump’s team that Carroll does not consent and asked whether the president would agree to an immediate disbursement of the funds.
Kaplan filed a motion on Tuesday asking a New York federal judge to set an accelerated schedule for releasing the $5 million, plus $779,783 in accrued interest. She requested that the court require Trump’s side to respond within seven days, rather than the standard fourteen, citing the cost of further delay in the nearly four-year litigation.
The request follows the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Monday to decline hearing Trump’s appeal of the jury’s finding that he sexually abused Carroll in a 1990s department-store encounter and defamed her. The jury had reached its verdict in under three hours.
"Carroll does not consent," Kaplan wrote in a filing, adding that the parties had previously agreed Carroll could collect if the Supreme Court denied the appeal.
The $5 million has been held in a court-controlled account since the verdict. Carroll celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision on her Substack blog, posting an all-caps message expressing triumph.
Trump continues to deny the allegations and has indicated he will also appeal a separate $83 million defamation judgment issued by a federal jury in January 2024.
