Lawyer for E. Jean Carroll says Trump wants to delay $5 million payment in sex abuse, defamation case

Lawyers for President Trump asked for writer E. Jean Carroll’s consent to delay the $5 million awarded to her by a 2023 jury, and signaled they plan to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider his appeal of Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation case, according to an attorney for Carroll. 

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, wrote in a court filing Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s lawyer called her with the request Monday, soon after the Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal. Later Monday, Kaplan wrote, she informed Mr. Trump’s team that “Carroll does not consent,” and asked whether the president would agree to the immediate disbursement of the funds Carroll has waited years to receive.

In a separate filing Tuesday, Kaplan asked a judge to set a faster-than-normal schedule to disburse $5 million in damages awarded to her by a 2023 jury, which found Mr. Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. Kaplan wrote that Carroll is also due an additional $779,783 in interest.

Kaplan said she intends to motion the federal court in New York for the funds’ release, and requested “that the court direct [Trump] to respond to the motion within seven days, or by July 7, 2026, rather than the usual fourteen days.”

She pointed to a June 2023 filing in which she said the two sides agreed Carroll could collect if the Supreme Court denied a petition to hear the case. The court did so Monday.

Kaplan also cited the cost to Carroll of “further delay in this nearly four-year-old litigation.”

CBS News has reached out to Mr. Trump’s legal team.

Carroll seemingly triumphed over Mr. Trump Monday when the nation’s highest court declined to hear his appeal. The president had spent three years appealing the unanimous federal jury’s conclusion — reached in under three hours — that he, more likely than not, sexually abused Carroll by forcibly inserting his fingers into her during a 1990s encounter in a department store. 

Mr. Trump, who vehemently denies Carroll’s allegations, has claimed he didn’t know Carroll and “she’s not my type.” His denials and claims about Carroll were central to her defamation allegations. The jury watched a moment in Mr. Trump’s videotaped deposition when he was shown a late-1980s photo that depicted Mr. Trump and Carroll in conversation with their then-spouses. In the deposition, he mistakenly identified Carroll as his ex-wife Marla Maples. Kaplan argued it was proof Carroll was indeed Mr. Trump’s “type.”

The $5 million has been held in a court-controlled bank account in the years since.

Carroll celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision Monday in a brief note on her Substack blog, writing in all capital letters, “WE WON!”

“THIS WIN IS FOR EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD!” Carroll wrote.

Mr. Trump also appealed a separate federal jury’s January 2024 decision finding him liable for other defamatory statements against Carroll. That jury awarded her another $83 million. 

Lawyers for Mr. Trump have indicated they will also bring that case to the Supreme Court.