Former President Donald Trump is preparing to transfer $5.5 million to a court-controlled account, agreeing to pay damages to E. Jean Carroll in her defamation and sexual abuse lawsuit.
Despite Trump’s ongoing appeal of the Manhattan jury’s verdict last month, his lawyers sought to deposit $5,500,000 to the New York federal court as a cash bond, attorney Joe Tacopina outlined in a filing Friday.
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The funds will act as a security deposit as Trump filed an appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals over the civil verdict last month. Judge Lewis Kaplan approved the arrangement later Friday afternoon, clarifying that if Trump loses the appeal, Carroll will get the $5 million a jury awarded her. However, if the former president’s appeal is successful, the security deposit will be returned.
If the appeal case is remanded to the court for a further opinion or additional proceedings, the funds will continue to be held by the court until the amount awarded to Carroll “becomes final and un-appealable,” according to the document. According to the court filing, the deposit is set to be made within five business days of the order.
The author and advice columnist accused the current GOP presidential front-runner of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and filed a defamation lawsuit in 2019 against him after he denied the allegations. The trial began in April, and a jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $2 million for battery and $3 million for defamation on May 9.
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Carroll has a second defamation trial filed against Trump seeking $10 million, which will begin in federal court in New York in January 2024. This lawsuit was filed before the case where Trump was found liable, with Carroll accusing Trump of defaming her when she went public with abuse allegations in 2019. Kaplan granted Carroll’s amendment request to her original civil suit against Trump to add the comments he made against her at a CNN town hall in May.
Kaplan previously denied Tacopina’s request to delay the trial date of Carroll’s successful lawsuit. Kaplan also denied an attempt by Trump’s associates to dismiss Carroll’s second defamation lawsuit, stating James Brady, a friend of the former president who issued the motion, did not meet the criteria to intervene in a civil action case, according to the court filing.
