Trump Delays $83 Million Carroll Award Under Ap News
News: Donald Trump will not have to pay E. Jean Carroll’s $83 million defamation award yet, after the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let him delay payment while the Supreme Court considers his appeal or turns it away. A court entry Tuesday said the delay depends on a $7.4 million bond to cover added interest costs.
Trump and Carroll
The appeal keeps the award tied up for now, rather than sending Carroll into collection efforts on the full judgment. Trump’s lawyer, Justin D. Smith, asked the appeals court to stay the effect of its decision upholding the award after the court refused late last month to convene the full 2nd Circuit.
Smith told the court last week there was a “fair prospect” that the Supreme Court will rule for Trump. Carroll’s attorney had asked that the bond be required, and the appeals court accepted that condition while it allowed the delay.
January 2024 Verdict
The award stems from a January 2024 verdict that a three-judge panel later affirmed. The same case began with Carroll’s public claims in 2019 about an attack she said happened in spring 1996 in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room.
A jury in May 2023 had already awarded Carroll $5 million after finding Trump sexually abused her and later defamed her after she published her account in a memoir. The larger $83 million award followed, after the jury that reached it heard Trump testify and watched his conduct over several days.
Last September Panel
In a decision last September, a 2nd Circuit panel wrote that Trump continued attacking Carroll for at least five years and that the attacks became “more extreme and frequent as the trial approached.” The panel also said he kept making the same attacks during the trial, including a statement two days into the proceedings that he would continue to defame Carroll “a thousand times.”
Trump has called Carroll’s claims a “made up scam” and is challenging the $83 million award on several grounds, including his argument that comments he made while president are covered by “absolute immunity.” The stay does not resolve that challenge; it only postpones payment while the Supreme Court decides whether to take the case.
