Writer E. Jean Carroll has officially collected over $5.6 million that was awarded to her by a jury in her sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump. According to court records and confirmation from her legal team, the payment was processed on Monday from an account where the funds had been held in escrow since the 2023 verdict.
The total amount represents the original $5 million jury award combined with accrued interest. Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer representing Carroll, confirmed the receipt of the damages in a formal statement. Carroll herself marked the development on the platform Substack, noting that “the eagle has landed.” Court documents indicate that Carroll intends to deposit the funds into a retirement account.
The release of the funds followed a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to let the civil verdict remain in place, which paved the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to authorize the payment. Although Trump’s legal team requested an emergency order to block the transfer, the request was denied by the court. Despite the payment being finalized, Trump’s attorneys have indicated they intend to pursue further appeals to challenge the ruling.
The case originated from a 1996 incident in which a jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room. Carroll, now 82 and a former advice columnist, also successfully argued that Trump defamed her after she publicly recounted the experience in a 2019 memoir. During his first term as president, Trump repeatedly denied the allegations, claiming that Carroll was “totally lying” and asserting that she was “not my type.” He further dismissed a 1987 photograph of himself and Carroll with their then-spouses as inconsequential and accused her of harboring political motives to sell books.
Carroll filed the lawsuit after New York legislation provided sexual abuse survivors a limited window to sue for incidents that occurred in the distant past. Trump did not attend the trial, during which Carroll testified that a friendly encounter at the department store eventually turned violent. In a separate legal matter, Trump is currently appealing an $83 million defamation judgment granted to Carroll by a different Manhattan jury following a 2024 trial.
