Federal Judge Orders $5.8 Million Trump Judgment Released to Carroll

Summary

Less than an hour after a Manhattan federal judge ordered the release of $5.8 million held in a court account, Donald Trump filed paperwork signaling he would appeal again. The money has been sitting there since Trump deposited the jury award plus 11 percent interest roughly six weeks after a 2023 jury found he had sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and later defamed her when he denied her account. Trump had tried to block the release by taking the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear his appeal last month. Wednesday's ruling by the federal judge effectively frees those funds for Carroll to collect. The underlying verdict has survived multiple rounds of litigation, and the dollar figure at stake has grown with interest from the original award to the current $5.8 million. Carroll's legal team had asked the court to act after the Supreme Court closed off Trump's last avenue for delay. The new appeal Trump filed within the hour suggests the legal battle is not finished, though he faces a narrowing set of options to keep the money out of Carroll's hands.