By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK, July 8 (Reuters) – Lawyers for U.S. President Donald Trump have asked a federal judge not to authorize a disbursement of a multi-million dollar damages award to magazine writer E. Jean Carroll to satisfy a 2023 civil verdict in which a jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
In a filing late on Tuesday night in Manhattan federal court, Trump’s lawyers said Carroll should wait until the U.S. Supreme Court hears Trump’s renewed bid to overturn the $5 million verdict, which has grown to about $5.8 million including interest.
The lawyers said Trump would be irreparably harmed and face “unrecoverable loss” if Carroll fulfills her stated intention to give away the money, because once she does the money likely could not be recovered.
They also said letting Carroll recover, only to have the Supreme Court grant a rehearing, would “undermine public confidence in an orderly judicial process” at a time when Trump’s supporters and some critics, according to his lawyers, voice “concerns about politically motivated weaponization of the legal system.”
A spokesperson for Carroll declined to comment on Wednesday.
The Supreme Court declined to hear Trump’s appeal on June 29, and none of the nine justices noted dissents.
The Supreme Court rarely takes up appeals after initially turning them down. Trump petitioned for a rehearing on Monday. A Tuesday docket entry said Trump’s renewed appeal was “not accepted for filing,” without explanation.
Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The $5.8 million is being held in a court-supervised escrow account.
TRUMP PLANS SECOND APPEAL
Carroll, 82, and Trump, 80, have battled in court for nearly seven years, after the former Elle magazine advice columnist accused him of raping her around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.
Trump has rejected Carroll’s claims as a “hoax” and “con job,” denying he knew her and saying she made up the alleged rape to help sell her memoir.
Jurors awarded Carroll the $5 million based on a Trump denial in 2022, though they did not find that Trump raped her.
A different jury in January 2024 ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3 million in damages based on his original denial in 2019, which occurred during his first White House term. Trump has said he deserves presidential immunity for that denial.
The Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to throw out the $83.3 million verdict last September.
Trump plans to appeal that verdict to the Supreme Court, and his lawyers said a successful appeal could undermine the basis for the $5 million verdict.
Carroll has accused Trump of stalling to avoid accountability. In a June 30 court filing, her lawyers said that “it is time for him to pay Carroll.”
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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