Less than two weeks after E. Jean Carroll received more than $5.6 million from a court-controlled escrow account, President Donald Trump is demanding that she return the money.
Trump’s attorneys are seeking an emergency injunction that would send the funds back to the account while they continue challenging the judgment. Carroll’s legal team argues that the request is procedurally improper, legally baseless, and merely the latest attempt to delay the consequences of a civil verdict that has already survived multiple appeals.
5The $5.6 million was transferred to Carroll after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the payment process to begin on July 8. The funds were disbursed from the court-controlled escrow account on July 9, according to The Independent. The original civil judgment totaled $5 million. Interest that accumulated while Trump challenged the verdict increased the payment to $5,625,005.48.
Trump’s legal team is now seeking an emergency injunction that would require Carroll to return the money to the escrow account. The attorneys reportedly hope to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider the case and ultimately reverse the judgment.
The request does not mean the verdict has been overturned or that Carroll has been ordered to return anything. It asks the appellate court to intervene while Trump continues attempting to challenge the result.
Judge Lewis Kaplan Accused Trump Of ‘Stalling’
5Kaplan ordered the payout after concluding that Trump had exhausted the appellate process needed to prevent Carroll from collecting the judgment.
“Defendant has been stalling this case for years,” the judge wrote. “A jury unanimously concluded that he sexually abused and defamed plaintiff and awarded her damages accordingly. The judgment on that verdict has been upheld on appeal.”
Kaplan also pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to review the case. The justices, including the three members of the court appointed by Trump, declined to take up his appeal “without dissent,” Kaplan noted.
“It is time” for Trump to “pay the judgment,” the judge wrote.
The Supreme Court declined to review Trump’s appeal on June 29, leaving the civil verdict in place. The Hill reported that the lower court subsequently authorized the release of the money, which had remained in escrow while Trump pursued his appeals.
E. Jean Carroll’s Lawyers Blast Trump’s Latest Request
5Carroll’s attorneys opposed the emergency injunction in documents filed Monday, July 21, with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. They described Trump’s request as “procedurally improper, substantively meritless, and yet another example of Defendant’s pattern of ‘slow-roll[ing] his defenses, asserting or inventing a new one each time his prior effort to delay the case fails.’”
“But rather than accept the reality that he had lost, [Trump] has engaged in a series of maneuvers trying desperately to forestall payment,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote.
Her attorneys argued that the payment “should have been the end of this case, but Defendant now demands yet another unprecedented remedy. The judgment here is final, the money has already been disbursed, and Carroll is entitled to keep it.”
The attorneys also accused Trump of approaching the court “with very unclean hands” because he allegedly continued making statements similar to those underlying Carroll’s defamation claims.
A Civil Jury Found Trump Liable For Sexual Abuse And Defamation
5The payment stems from a 2023 civil trial in which a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and later defaming her.
Carroll alleged that Trump forced her against a dressing-room wall at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, pinned her with his shoulder, and raped her during an encounter in the 1990s. Trump has consistently denied the allegations since Carroll first made them public in her 2019 memoir. The jury’s decision was a finding of civil liability, not a criminal conviction.
The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The Associated Press confirmed that the amount later grew to approximately $5.8 million with interest before the money was released.
Trump spent three years challenging the verdict before petitioning the Supreme Court. The justices declined to hear his appeal earlier this year.
Trump Vows To Continue Fighting The Case
5Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump criticized the case on Truth Social and insisted that he would continue contesting the outcome. “Surprisingly, the Supreme Court declined to ‘review’ a Fake Case brought against me by a woman I never met,” Trump wrote on June 29.
“I will continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength,” he continued. “This Injustice cannot be allowed to stand!”
For now, the $5.6 million remains with Carroll. Trump’s request asks the appellate court to place it back in escrow, but unless the court grants that emergency relief, the judgment and completed payment remain undisturbed.
