Trump’s long fight to shake off the $5 million civil judgment in E. Jean Carroll’s sex abuse and defamation case just hit a wall at the highest court in the country.
On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to review Trump’s appeal, leaving in place the 2023 New York jury verdict that found him civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll. The decision came without a written explanation and with no public dissents noted, but the message was still loud. The $5 million judgment stands, and Trump’s attempt to get the justices to reopen the verdict is effectively over.
The case has followed Trump for years, and this latest ruling marks a major win for Carroll, the former Elle advice columnist who accused Trump of assaulting her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in the mid 1990s. Trump has repeatedly denied the accusation, but a federal jury in Manhattan sided with Carroll in 2023 on key claims, finding that he sexually abused her and defamed her through public statements.
Carroll celebrated the Supreme Court’s move in bold fashion, writing, “WE WON! THIS WIN IS FOR EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD!”
Her attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, also made it clear that she viewed the ruling as a final stamp on the case, saying the decision “affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that Donald J. Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll. His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed, and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions.”
Trump, however, is not backing down from his public denial. After the Supreme Court declined to take up the case, he posted on social media and called Carroll’s lawsuit “a Fake Case.” He also wrote, “I will continue the fight against this Weaponization and Lawfare Case against me, including the ridiculous claim of Defamation, with all of my power and strength.”
The legal fight stems from Carroll’s allegation that Trump attacked her after the two crossed paths at Bergdorf Goodman decades ago. Carroll first went public with her accusation in 2019, and Trump denied it while attacking her credibility. She later sued under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a law that temporarily gave adults who said they were sexually assaulted a one year window to file civil lawsuits, even if the statute of limitations had already expired.
That law opened the door for Carroll’s civil case to move forward, and in May 2023, a jury awarded her a total of $5 million. The panel awarded damages for sexual abuse and defamation tied to Trump’s 2022 statements, including comments in which he called her claims a “complete con job” and “a Hoax and a lie.”
However, the jury did not find Trump liable for rape, which Carroll had alleged. Instead, jurors found him liable for sexual abuse under New York civil law, along with defamation. That distinction matters legally, but it did not change the financial judgment or the public weight of the verdict.
Trump’s appeal focused heavily on what jurors were allowed to hear during the trial. His lawyers argued that the trial judge should not have allowed testimony from two other women who alleged past misconduct by Trump. They also challenged the use of an excerpt from the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording, where Trump was heard bragging about grabbing and kissing women without consent.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected Trump’s arguments in December 2024 and upheld the verdict. The appeals court found that the trial judge did not abuse his discretion by allowing the evidence, and that Trump had not shown that any alleged errors damaged his right to a fair trial.
After that loss, Trump asked the Supreme Court to step in. Now that the justices have declined, Carroll’s $5 million win remains intact.
Still, this is not the only Carroll case hanging over Trump. A separate jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million in January 2024 after finding Trump defamed her through 2019 statements made after she first publicly accused him. That larger judgment is still being fought, and Trump’s legal team has indicated that it plans to ask the Supreme Court to review that case as well.
For Carroll, Monday’s ruling strengthens her position in a legal saga that has stretched across multiple trials, appeals, and public statements. For Trump, it adds another courtroom defeat to a long list of battles that continue to shadow him politically and personally.
The moment is also bigger than one dollar amount. The $5 million verdict is now much harder for Trump to challenge, and it leaves a federal jury’s finding of sexual abuse and defamation standing after years of legal pushback. That is why this ruling carries such a heavy punch. It does not just preserve a payout. It preserves the record of what a jury already decided.
Trump may still fight the $83.3 million defamation judgment, and he has made it clear that he intends to keep attacking the Carroll cases as political. But on this first verdict, the road appears to have run out. The Supreme Court passed on the case, the appeals court ruling remains in place, and Carroll’s $5 million judgment is still standing.
