Following a defeat at the U.S. Supreme Court, former President Donald Trump has paid over $5.6 million in damages to writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of sexual assault.
This payment, which was released from an escrow account on July 13, includes $5 million in damages plus interest. The funds had been held in that account since the initial verdict in 2023.
Now 82, Carroll was born in Detroit, Michigan, and has worked as a journalist and a columnist for fashion magazine ELLE. She is the author of books like A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Surviving the Savage Heart: My Life and Unloved Life, and What Do We Need Men For?.
In 2019, she revealed in her book that she was violently assaulted by Trump in a fitting room at a Fifth Avenue department store in New York City in 1996, during a shopping trip. She then filed a lawsuit. Trump has consistently denied the allegations, claiming he didn’t know her and that her motives were to sell books. At the time, Trump was in his second marriage.
In a May 2023 trial in New York state court, a jury found Trump liable for sexual assault, though not for rape under New York law, and also for defaming Carroll. In January 2024, the jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages, and an appeal of that decision is still ongoing.
Following the verdict, Trump posted on social media, calling it a “disgrace” and part of “the greatest political witch hunt in history.” During the trial, which coincided with the presidential election, Trump accused his political opponents of using the case to block his re-election.
In December 2024, an appeals court upheld the verdict. By then, Trump had secured his second presidential term, and he asked the Supreme Court to intervene. On June 29 of this year, the Supreme Court rejected his appeal.
The justices ruled that, given Trump’s repeated personal attacks on Carroll and the “egregious nature” of the evidence, the jury’s damages award was reasonable.
The opinion also noted that after Trump’s attacks, Carroll received thousands of abusive messages on social media and via email, including hundreds of death threats. There was strong evidence that Trump showed a complete disregard for Carroll’s health and safety, with the attacks becoming more extreme and frequent as trial approached.
According to Forbes and other authoritative lists, Trump’s net worth is estimated between $6.5 billion and $7.6 billion, having grown by about $1.4 billion in the past year. This includes earnings of $550 million to $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency-related projects and about $575 million from his traditional real estate business.