Judge Releases $5 Million+ to E. Jean Carroll Forcing Trump to Finally Pay Up

This is the first real crack in the Trump wall of criminality that will soon crumble into dust. Can the $83 million+ verdict against him be far behind?

Image: aljazeera.com/news/2026/l

US District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan finally issued a final ruling forcing the 34-count-convicted-felon, the adjudicated sexual abuser/rapist and the credibly suspected pedophile— who just happens to be the current President of the United States of America — to pay E. Jean Carroll (82) — the $5 million awarded to her after a 2023 jury found that, yes indeedy, Donald Trump digitally raped her way back in 1996.

After the verdict, Trump then repeatedly, loudly, defamed her again and again. He denied that he even or ever knew who she was, that he had never met her, and, besides, she could not in ‘96, and certainly not now in ‘26, meet his high standards of feminine “beauty” anyway. This statement, of course, was an unconscious admission that, yes, there certainly are women “worthy” of being sexually assaulted by him.

Trump cannot stop this payment because for the last three years, the $5 million has been quietly and safely sitting in a court escrow account accruing interest, and now clocks in at $5.8 million. Although Judge Kaplan had previously ordered release of the money, he, like the $5 million, patiently waited until The Supremes finally refused last week to hear Trump’s appeal of the verdict and the award.

Judge Kaplan also promptly denied Trump’s attorneys’ motion to delay the payment for several more months — while they asked The Supremes to reconsider their refusal to even hear what they had to say about the court’s refusal. As a court watcher for many, many years, I do not recall a ruling by The Supremes ever having been “reconsidered.” Overturned…yes…usually by a differently constituted Court; but never “reconsidered,” especially in the same court term.

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team responded to this latest Trump defeat in a statement: “The American people stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes.”

That spokesperson, however, made no mention of the jury composed of ordinary “American people” who heard the evidence against Trump and then found him “liable” for his illegal acts against this woman some thirty years ago.

Carroll’s all-female lawyers allowed that their client had already waited long enough and that it was time for Trump to finally face the music.

Carroll’s civil lawsuit was originally filed in 2022 in New York. She claimed that the former and future president sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a tony Manhattan department store after a chance encounter in 1996. She said that he pushed her against the wall of a dressing room, lowered her pants and digitally penetrated her vagina. Carroll told no one save a very close female colleague and friend about this “encounter.”

New York has revised its statute of limitations for sexual assault multiple times. Key changes were made in 2006 for criminal cases, in 2019 for civil and criminal cases, and in 2022 through the Adult Survivors Act.

In 2021–22, buoyed by the “Me-Too Movement” and a fire-breathing all-female law firm, Carroll found her courage and an outlet for her outrage. She realized that she could finally go after Trump for what he had done to her all those years ago….and win. Carroll and her attorneys did just that.

By then, of course, Trump had been summarily thrown out of the White House. As is his wont, he promptly and repeatedly denied Carroll’s accusations. Perhaps had he left his response to a simple denial, Carroll just might have been satisfied that at least her story had finally been made public.

But! From birth, Trump was socialized to always hit back and hit back harder when someone, anyone, hits him (as most of us are). But as a president or former president of the country, “hitting back” takes on a whole different character and has a much more deleterious effect on the person or groups one may be feuding with.

[embed]Why Trump Can’t Stop Defaming E. Jean Carroll His lifelong ‘principle’ of never admitting a mistake is costing him millionsmedium.com

Trump just could not help himself. He immediately, repeatedly, and publicly defamed Carroll personally and said that her claims amounted to a “con job” and “hoax.”

At that point, E. Jean Carroll had had enough of this lecherous man. She sued.

And, as the saying goes, “the rest is history.”

$83 Million and Counting

As noted above, Trump is constitutionally unable to admit wrongdoing or apologize therefor. After the $5 million verdict came down, instead of admitting his loss, he doubled-down on his denials of Carroll’s claims and defamed her even more.

She sued again, and this time won a whopping $83 million verdict to compensate her strictly and solely for his continuing defamation. That’s right…a separate Manhattan jury, after a 2024 trial, again lowered an even bigger boom against him.

During that trial in which Trump briefly testified after making purposely distracting and nettlesome noises from his seat at the defendant’s table, Judge Kaplan not only required the jury to accept the findings of the previous jury that he was/is, in fact, a sexual predator, but to only decide how much money, if any, Trump owed Carroll for making defamatory comments while he was president.

Trump’s lawyers, naturally, objected, arguing that the judge had wrongfully barred Trump and his defense team from telling the jury that the “encounter” with Carroll never happened — even though he had already been tried and convicted of the crime of sexual abuse exactly as set forth in the first complaint against him.

Trump, of course, appealed the $83 million verdict to the 2nd Circuit Court which declined to let all of its judges rehear his appeal. According to 2nd Circuit Court Judge Denny Chin, the court’s reasoning went like this: Trump had said multiple times over many years that Carroll lied for political and financial gain and had suggested she was too unattractive — “not my type” — for Trump to have sexually assaulted her, implying that there is a “type” of woman worthy of being sexually assaulted by him.

“As a result of Trump’s statements, Carroll was harassed and humiliated, subjected to death threats, and feared for her physical safety for years,” Chin said. “And Trump showed no remorse, continuing his attacks against Carroll during and after two federal trials, and even proclaiming two days into the Carroll I trial that he would continue to defame her ‘a thousand times.’”

Commentary

Is there any reason to believe that Trump will win his appeal of the $83 million verdict? I think not.

Trump is a lifelong sexual predator who has never been held to account for his crimes…yes, crimes.

Until he finally abused the wrong woman — E. Jean Carroll. For her part, immediately after she won the $83 million verdict, she vowed to donate much of that money to other victims of Trump’s debauchery, to rape crisis centers and to women’s health organizations.

[embed]E. Jean Carroll to Use Trump’s Money to Help Women He Sexually Abused But will even $83.3 million be enough to cover all of Trump’s victims?medium.com

The next shoe to drop in the sad and terrifying saga of Donald Trump is coming in November when he loses control of at least one house of Congress and possibly both.

At that time, the Democrats must begin wall-to-wall investigations of everything this reprobate of a “president” has ever done.

They must immediately release the full and unredacted “Epstein Files”…and then impeach, convict, and throw this man onto the mercy of honest prosecutors throughout the land.