Trump pays writer E Jean Carroll $5m in damages over sexual abuse and defamation

US President Donald Trump has paid author E Jean Carroll more than $5 million (£3.7 million) in damages three years after she was found liable for sexual harassment and defamation in a civil case, her lawyers have confirmed.

“Today, we are pleased to report that he received the compensation the jury awarded him as a result of this verdict,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a brief statement Tuesday. he said.

Trump had been pushing for a delay in payment to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to hear an appeal in the case. However, last week, the judge who heard the case decided to pay him compensation.

A representative for Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the payment.

A statement from Carroll’s legal team confirmed he had been paid more than $5.62 million – the $5 million judgment plus interest accrued during the appeal.

Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 82, accused Trump of assaulting her in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s and later slandering her in a 2022 post on the Truth Social website denying her allegations.

In 2023, a New York jury awarded Carroll damages for his claim. Trump denied the allegations.

Trump deposited the damages into a court-controlled account shortly after the verdict, and the account was kept there while the appeal process continued.

Trump’s lawyers condemned the judge’s decision that he must pay and called the lawsuit a “hoax” and a “Witch Hunt” that they claimed was funded by Democrats.