The fight has moved from the verdict to the payout. Carroll says the case should finally end, while Trump is leaning on one more Supreme Court request to keep the money from being released.
Donald Trump is trying to stop E. Jean Carroll from collecting a multimillion-dollar civil award, even after the Supreme Court declined to take up his appeal.
The fight is now about timing, leverage and finality: whether money being held to cover the judgment should be released to Carroll while Trump asks the justices to reconsider.
The fight is now over payment
Lawyers for Trump have asked a federal judge not to authorize the disbursement of the damages award, Reuters reported. The money stems from a 2023 civil verdict in New York in which a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her.
Carroll, a writer and former magazine columnist, is asking the court to order payment after the Supreme Court declined Trump’s request to review the case. The original jury award was $5 million; according to the BBC, Carroll’s lawyers have said the amount is now close to $5.8 million with interest.
The money has been held in escrow, a legal holding arrangement that keeps funds available while appeals play out. That makes the current dispute concrete: Carroll wants the funds released, while Trump wants the court to wait.
Carroll says the delays are over
Carroll’s lawyers argue that Trump has already received the delays he sought while pursuing appeals. The BBC reported that they told the court Carroll had agreed to Trump’s requests to postpone payment, but that her cooperation had now ended.
“It is time for him to pay Carroll,” her lawyers wrote, according to the BBC. They also told the court that after years of litigation across the federal court system, the case should end.
That argument is aimed at the trial judge overseeing enforcement of the award. For Carroll, the issue is no longer whether Trump prefers to keep fighting. It is whether a jury verdict that survived appellate review should finally be converted into payment.
Trump is pressing one more Supreme Court move
Trump’s side is pointing to a pending Supreme Court request. Bloomberg reported that Trump asked the justices to reconsider their June 29 rejection of his appeal, a step Bloomberg described as unusual.
If the Supreme Court were to reopen the matter, that could delay Carroll’s ability to receive the money now held in escrow. That possibility is central to Trump’s effort to keep the funds from being released immediately.
Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations and has continued to attack the case publicly. After the Supreme Court declined review, the BBC reported, he wrote on Truth Social that the case was “fake” and said he would continue fighting what he called “weaponization and lawfare.”
His lawyers have also argued that the trial was unfair because of evidence allowed by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. A federal appeals court previously rejected the argument that the judge made errors requiring a new trial, according to the BBC.
The verdict behind the standoff
The award comes from Carroll’s civil lawsuit over her allegation that Trump attacked her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s and later defamed her when he denied it.
In May 2023, a New York jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded Carroll $5 million. The case was civil, not criminal, meaning it did not result in a criminal conviction.
Trump has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. But the verdict has remained in place through the appeals process so far, and the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case left Carroll’s lawyers arguing that there is no longer a valid reason to keep the money locked up.
The dispute is separate from another Carroll verdict. In 2024, a different jury awarded her nearly $84 million in a defamation case, and Trump has also challenged that outcome, according to the BBC.
Why escrow matters here
Escrow can make a judgment feel suspended between two realities. On paper, Carroll won the award. In practice, she cannot use the money unless the court authorizes its release.
For Trump, keeping the funds in escrow preserves the status quo while he pursues the Supreme Court rehearing request. For Carroll, continued escrow means another delay after the jury verdict, appellate review and the Supreme Court’s decision not to take the case.
The stakes are also symbolic. Carroll’s legal team is framing payment as the endpoint of a long-running civil case. Trump’s team is treating the pending Supreme Court request as a reason not to let that endpoint arrive yet.
That is why this latest filing matters even though the underlying verdict is already well known. The legal battle has moved from whether Carroll won to whether she can finally collect.
What happens next
The federal judge must decide whether to allow the money to be released while Trump’s Supreme Court rehearing request is pending. The judge could side with Carroll and authorize payment, or agree with Trump that the court should wait.
The Supreme Court could also act on Trump’s request to reconsider its rejection. If the justices deny rehearing, Carroll’s argument for immediate payment becomes stronger. If they reopen the matter, the dispute over disbursement could stretch further.
For now, the case sits in a narrow but consequential procedural lane. Trump is not just fighting the verdict in public; he is trying to keep the judgment from becoming cash in Carroll’s hands.
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