FLASH
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The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear President Donald Trump's appeal of a $5 million civil jury verdict that found he sexually abused and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll. The ruling means Trump must pay Carroll the damages awarded.
Carroll first sued Trump in 2019 for defamation and then, in 2022, filed a second lawsuit for defamation and sexual assault after New York state passed a law allowing victims of sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits even for events that occurred years earlier. In an unusual development, the 2022 lawsuit was tried before the 2019 lawsuit, and a jury decided to award Carroll $5 million in damages.
The 2019 lawsuit was later reviewed in a second trial, which ended with an $83 million verdict against Trump. Including interest, the US president owes Carroll over $100 million in total.
In the 2022 lawsuit, Carroll alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her by claiming that she fabricated the story to boost book sales. Trump has consistently denied the allegations and argued that federal Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the civil trial, made a series of procedural errors by allowing the jury to hear testimony from two other women who claimed he had sexually assaulted them years earlier.
Trump also argued that the judge should not have allowed the jury to see the infamous "Access Hollywood" recording, where he is heard in 2005 making offensive and sexist comments about women.
"I know I'm automatically attracted to beauty. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab the genitals. You can do anything," Trump is heard saying in the recording.
A spokesman for the president's legal team said Monday that "the American people support President Trump as he seeks to immediately end all witch hunts, including the Carroll hoax, which they say was funded by Democrats."
"President Trump will continue to triumph over what he terms the 'lawfare' of the liberal left, while remaining focused on his mission to make America great again," the statement continued.
Last year, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury's $5 million award, finding that the trial judge had made no errors that would warrant a new trial. In June 2025, Trump also lost his bid to have the case heard by the full Court of Appeals and, a few months later, appealed to the Supreme Court.
"It is deeply damaging to the fabric of our republic that President Trump, in the midst of a historic presidency, is forced to divert attention from his constitutional duties to continue to fight the false accusations and injustices that have accompanied this baseless case. This treatment of a President must not be allowed to continue," the president's lawyers wrote in the petition to the Supreme Court.
The appeal has been pending for months in the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly postponed its decision on whether to accept the case. As is typical, the court did not provide an explanation for the repeated delays. Meanwhile, Trump's lawyers are expected to appeal the other $83 million ruling to the Supreme Court in the coming days.
In their response before the Supreme Court, Carroll's lawyers argued that the issue was only about the correct application of the rules of evidence and supported the Court of Appeals' decision.
"The court's task was simply to determine whether the jury could reasonably conclude that Mr. Trump had committed an act of sexual assault, based on the preponderance of the evidence. If that conclusion was reasonable, then the court was entitled to admit the evidence," the unanimous decision of the three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, appointed by Democratic presidents, said.
Trump transferred $5.5 million to a court-controlled account in 2023, shortly after the jury's verdict. For this reason, Carroll is expected to receive the funds in a relatively short period of time.
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