E. Jean Carroll collects more than $5 million from Trump in sexual abuse and defamation case

Attorneys from the president had tried to block the money from being turned over to the writer.

E. Jean Carroll has collected her $5 million judgment against President Donald Trump, more than three years after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her, court records show.

The money, which was being held in a court escrow account, has been “disbursed” to Carroll’s attorneys, the court filing shows. The amount totalled $5,625,005.48 with interest.

“We are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment the jury awarded her as a result of that verdict, Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, confirmed in an emailed statement

NBC News reached out to a representative for Trump’s legal team.

The case arose from a 2022 suit Carroll filed in New York alleging Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store after a chance encounter in 1996, and then defamed he after she came forward with her claims in 2019. Trump maintains he does not know Carroll and didn’t commit any wrongdoing.

A jury found Trump liable in 2023 and awarded Carroll $5 million, but the money remained in the court fund while Trump filed various appeals.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the money to be turned over to Carroll earlier this month, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Trump’s bid to hear his appeal.

The president’s attorneys unsuccessfully tried to block the disbursement, arguing their client faced “unrecoverable loss” once Carroll collects because she “has repeatedly stated that she intends to give away all funds that she collects from him,” and “once those funds are distributed to third parties, they likely cannot be recovered,” they said.

In a filing to the appeals court last week, Carroll’s attorneys said the money isn’t going anywhere, at least for the time being.