WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear President Donald Trump’s appeal seeking to overturn a jury verdict that found him liable for sexually assaulting writer E. Jean Carroll and defaming her, leaving intact a $5 million judgment awarded to the former magazine columnist.
The court rejected Trump’s petition in a brief order issued alongside several other decisions. As is customary, the justices did not provide reasons for declining to hear the case, and no dissents were noted.
The decision leaves in place a May 2023 federal jury verdict in Manhattan that found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York in 1996 and for defaming her through comments made in 2022.
Trump criticised the Supreme Court’s decision in a post on his Truth Social platform, maintaining that he had never met Carroll and denying the allegations against him.
“Surprisingly, the Supreme Court declined to ‘review’ a Fake Case brought against me by a woman I never met,” Trump wrote, adding that he would continue fighting what he described as a “Weaponization and Lawfare Case”, including the defamation ruling.
Trump was ordered to pay $2 million in damages for sexual assault and $3 million for defamation. A federal appeals court upheld the judgment in December 2024.
His lawyers had argued that the trial was tainted by what they described as “highly inflammatory” evidentiary rulings, including the admission of testimony from two other women who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago. They also argued that the trial judge had improperly applied federal rules of evidence.
Trump’s legal team said on Monday that the case represented “Liberal Lawfare” and argued that such treatment of a sitting president should not be allowed to stand.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision, saying it effectively ended Trump’s attempts to overturn the verdict.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald J. Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll,” Kaplan said in a statement.
“His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions,” she added.
Carroll, now 82, publicly accused Trump in a 2019 memoir of raping her in the mid-1990s. Trump denied the allegation.
At the 2023 civil trial, Carroll testified that what began as a chance encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman developed into a violent sexual assault in a dressing room.
The jury found Trump liable for sexual assault under New York civil law and for defaming Carroll when he publicly denied her claims.
