The United States Supreme Court dismissed on Monday, for the second time, President Donald Trump's attempt to overturn the verdict that found him liable for sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll and for defaming her, according to the British newspaper The Guardian.
The decision was issued in an unsigned order without explanation, in which Trump's petition was listed under the category of "denied reconsideration requests," alongside other petitions. With this ruling, the five million dollar civil judgment issued by a jury in May 2023 is upheld and unappealable.
The attorney for Carroll, Roberta Kaplan, celebrated the ruling with a strong statement: "We are pleased that the Supreme Court has once again declined to hear this case. As a result, the jury's unanimous verdict that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and then defamed E. Jean Carroll is now final and cannot be challenged in any court."
The money is already in Carroll's hands. In July, following the Supreme Court's initial rejection of Trump's appeal, a federal judge in Manhattan ordered the release of the funds that the president had deposited into a court account weeks after the original verdict. The total amount disbursed to Carroll amounted to approximately 5.6 million dollars, including accrued interest.
The case originates from the accusations made by Carroll, who claims that Trump assaulted her in a fitting room at a Bergdorf Goodman store in New York in the mid-1990s.
Carroll publicly disclosed the accusation in June 2019 in an excerpt from her memoirs; Trump responded by denying the allegations and attacking her credibility, which led to defamation lawsuits. Following a two-week civil trial, the federal jury found him liable for sexual assault and defamation.
In December 2024, a panel of three judges from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan had already upheld that verdict.
This is not the only legal front Trump is facing with Carroll. In January 2024, a second federal jury found him liable to pay 83.3 million dollars for defamation, in a separate case based on statements Trump made about Carroll in 2019.
As of today, the Supreme Court has still not decided whether to take up the case of the 83.3 million. The official record shows that Carroll's response is due by August 31, 2026. Other sources explain that, according to the usual timetable, the Supreme Court will announce later this year whether it accepts the matter or not.
Trump's judicial history is considered the most complex of any U.S. president in modern history.
In 2023, he accumulated four simultaneous criminal charges, and in 2024 he became the first former president convicted criminally in the United States, in the case of falsified records in Manhattan.
Federal cases were dismissed following his reelection. Trump has also filed his own multimillion-dollar lawsuits against various media and entities.
The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Supreme Court's decision. The next relevant ruling in the Carroll case will be the one issued by the Supreme Court regarding the appeal of the 83.3 million dollars, expected before the end of 2026.
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