Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll asked a judgeon Wednesday to require US President Donald Trump to pay her US$5 million (NZ$8.8 million) from a jury verdict that concluded Trump sexually abused her in the 1990s and defamed her after she publicly described the attack in 2019.
Lawyers for Carroll filed papers in Manhattan federal court to say Trump is unjustly trying to further delay release of the money after the Supreme Court refused Tuesday to hear an appeal of the 2023 civil jury verdict.
The amount has grown to nearly US$5.8 million (NZ$10.2 million) with interest and should be required by the court to be disbursed, the lawyers wrote, saying Trump has resumed his defamatory attacks against Carroll as his lawyers considered asking the high court to reconsider its decision.
The jury reached its verdict in a trial that Trump did not attend after Carroll testified that she was sexually abused by Trump in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a midtown Manhattan luxury department store after a flirtatious and friendly chance encounter between them turned violent.
Carroll, 82, first talked about the attack publicly in 2019 while Trump was president. He repeatedly insisted that he never knew Carroll. He also accused her of trying to sell books at his expense and having political motives.
Trump promised on social media Tuesday to keep fighting what he called a "Weaponisation and Lawfare Case" after the Supreme Court's rejection became known.
They said lawyers for Trump contacted Carroll's attorneys minutes after Trump published a response to the high court's action, asking that the payout be delayed while the Supreme Court is asked to reconsider its decision.
But Carroll's lawyers — Roberta Kaplan, D. Brandon Trice and Maximilian T. Crema — said in their court filing that there was no reason to delay the payment, especially since the Supreme Court expressed no division in its decision not to hear the case.
"To date, Carroll has agreed to each of Defendant’s many requests to delay the payment he owes her. Given the extraordinary lengths he has taken to avoid such payments and that each of those efforts has been denied in full, that cooperation ends today. It is time for him to pay Carroll," they wrote.
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump is also appealing US$83 million (NZ$1.4 billion) in defamation compensation granted to Carroll from a separate Manhattan jury after a January 2024 trial at which Trump briefly testified.
At that trial, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is unrelated to Carroll's attorney, required that jury to accept the findings of the previous jury and only determine how much money, if any, Trump owed Carroll for comments he made about her as president.
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