Donald Trump will not have to pay an $83 million defamation award to E. Jean Carroll until the U.S. Supreme Court gets a chance to review the case or rejects his appeal, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a court entry Tuesday.
The appeals court granted a request from Trump’s lawyer to delay the effect of its decision upholding the award. It did so after the lawyer asked the 2nd Circuit for a stay so Trump would not be forced to pay the judgment before the high court has an opportunity to act, according to the court filing.
To condition the delay, the appeals court required Trump to post a $7.4 million bond intended to cover any additional interest costs, a request Carroll’s attorney had made.
The dispute traces back to a jury verdict in Carroll’s defamation case, which the appeals court upheld after a three-judge panel affirmed a January 2024 decision. Carroll, 82, was awarded $83 million after a jury that briefly heard Trump testify and then observed him during trial days.
In upholding the award, the 2nd Circuit panel said Trump continued attacks against Carroll for at least five years and that the attacks became “more extreme and frequent as the trial approached.” The panel also said Trump continued to make “these same attacks during the trial itself,” including a statement the court said Trump made two days into the trial that he would continue to defame Carroll “a thousand times.”
Trump is seeking Supreme Court review of the defamation award, calling Carroll’s account first made publicly in 2019 a “made up scam,” according to the court entry. His bid for the Supreme Court comes after the 2nd Circuit previously rejected a late request for a rare full-court (en banc) review of the three-judge panel’s decision.
The court entry also describes how the jury was instructed to accept prior findings: In May 2023, another jury awarded Carroll $5 million after it concluded that Trump sexually abused her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in spring 1996 and then defamed her after she published her account in a 2019 memoir.
Trump is now challenging the $83 million award on several grounds, asserting “absolute immunity” for comments he made while president as he denied knowing Carroll and attacked her motivations, the court entry said. Trump’s lawyers argued there was a “fair prospect” the Supreme Court would rule in his favor, the filing said.