Writer E. Jean Carroll arrives at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where former U.S. President Donald Trump was to arrive to ask a federal appeals court to overturn a $5 million jury verdict finding him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her, in New York, Sept. 6, 2024.
Adam Gray | Reuters
A New York federal appeals court on Wednesday night rejected a request by President Donald Trump to block E. Jean Carroll from collecting $5 million plus interest for damages from a jury verdict that held him civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer.
The denial came hours after Manhattan federal District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan granted Carroll’s request to receive nearly $5.8 million from funds Trump deposited with the court three years ago to satisfy the May 2023 jury award.
Trump’s lawyers quickly appealed Kaplan’s order to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and asked that court to stay the release of the money to Carroll.
“It is hereby ordered that the motion for administrative stay is denied,” the 2nd Circuit said in its order.
The ruling does not address the merits of Trump’s appeal of Kaplan’s order. It means the order can be executed now, and that the appeals court will later consider Trump’s arguments for overturning Kaplan’s order, which could potentially result in Carroll being ordered to return the money.
Trump could ask the Supreme Court to block the disbursement order.
CNBC has asked a spokesman for Trump’s legal team if the president will make such a request.
Kaplan, in his earlier order releasing the money to Carroll, pointed to the language of an agreement between her and Trump that called for her to be given the damage award if the Supreme Court denied his request that it hear his appeal of the verdict in the sexual abuse and defamation case in her favor.
The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s request on June 29.
Kaplan, in a memo explaining his decision, said, “disbursement of funds would not cause defendant irreparable harm” and said Trump had been seeking to delay the case since Carroll first sued him.
“In the highly unlikely event that the Supreme Court were to (i) grant defendant’s petition for rehearing, (ii) reverse itself and grant his previously denied cert. petition, and (iii) reverse the judgment in this case, defendant could bring suit to recover any funds erroneously disbursed,” Kaplan wrote.
“In the last analysis, defendant has been stalling this case for years,” Kaplan wrote.
“A jury unanimously concluded that he sexually abused and defamed plaintiff and awarded her damages accordingly,” Kaplan wrote. “The judgment on that verdict has been upheld on appeal. En banc rehearing has been denied. The Supreme Court has denied certiorari without dissent.”
“It is time for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment,” the judge wrote.
Kaplan’s order brushed aside arguments by Trump’s attorneys that Carroll cannot be paid the money unless the Supreme Court rejects the president’s new, long-shot bid for reconsideration of his petition that the high court take his appeal.
The Supreme Court very rarely grants such requests after having denied an initial petition.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team, in a statement on Kaplan’s order, said, “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes. President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”
CNBC has requested comment from Carroll’s lawyers.
Trump’s lawyers, Josh Halpern and Michael Madaio, in a filing Tuesday that argued Kaplan should not release the money, said, “Collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case.”
“Paragraph 8 [of the agreement] does not permit collection while the rehearing petition remains unresolved,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump’s attorneys also argued that another reason Carroll should not get any money yet is that the agreement includes language requiring Trump to be repaid the money he deposited if the verdict is reversed.
Carroll “has repeatedly stated that she intends to give away all funds that she collects from him, and once those funds are distributed to third parties, they likely cannot be recovered,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
Trump’s related new petition to the Supreme Court says a rehearing is warranted because Trump will soon ask the high court to hear arguments on whether he has immunity from another lawsuit by Carroll over statements he made about her while president.
Trump also lost that case in Manhattan federal court, where a jury in January 2024 ordered him to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defaming her when he denied her 2019 allegation that he raped her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s.
And if he has immunity in that case, the lawyers said, it could undercut the verdict in the other case that led to the $5 million award, because Carroll’s attorneys introduced evidence of those same statements at the other trial, in addition to statements he made in 2022, when he was not the president.
Trump listed both verdicts as liabilities in his 2025 financial disclosure report released June 30.
Carroll’s lawyers in a court filing last week argued she is entitled to automatically receive that award, plus accrued interest, because the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s petition for a writ of certiorari, which would have led to a hearing on his appeal.
The court, which includes three justices appointed by Trump, did not note any dissents to that denial, and did not explain its reasons for rejecting Trump’s request.
“This is the end of the line,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told Judge Kaplan, who is not related to her, in a June 30 filing asking him to release the money to the writer.
“It is time for him to pay Carroll,” Roberta Kaplan wrote.
“A petition for rehearing is likely to fail,” Kaplan wrote. “Requiring Carroll to endure further delay while Defendant seeks rehearing would both be profoundly unfair and undermine the public interest.”
Kaplan on Tuesday had filed with the court a proposed order for the disbursement of the money from the court’s registry.
Trump’s lawyers, in their filing Tuesday night, said Carroll was jumping the gun in asking to be paid now.
They pointed to language in the agreement the parties signed in 2023 to have the court hold Trump’s money pending his appeals.
“Paragraph 8 permits collection only “[a]fter the latest of” three specified appellate events,” Trump’s lawyers noted.
“One of those events is the final denial of a petition for certiorari,” or granting a hearing of an appeal, by the Supreme Court, the lawyers wrote.
“And another is the Supreme Court’s entry of an order after granting certiorari “in connection with the Appeal,” Trump’s lawyers said.
“Both provisions confirm that collection cannot begin while proceedings remain pending before the Supreme Court, which is currently the case.”
Judge Kaplan dismissed that argument in his memorandum explaining the order.