E Jean Carroll tells Trump to pay up her $5m after judge denies motion for mistrial

Former president was found liable for sexual assault and defamation at trial

E Jean Carroll has called on Donald Trump to pay up after losing his bid for a new trial in a civil sexual assault lawsuit brought by the advice columnist.

In a decision released on Wednesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said the jury did not reach a “seriously erroneous result” when it found the former president liable for sexual assault and defamation and ordered him to pay $5m.

The verdict was not a “miscarriage of justice,” as Mr Trump’s lawyers had claimed, Judge Kaplan wrote.

Ms Carroll’s lawyer Robbie Kaplan called for Mr Trump to comply with the jury’s multi-million dollar verdict, adding the writer was looking forward to holding him “accountable” at a second defamation trial in January.

“Now that the court has denied Trump’s motion for a new trial or to decrease the amount of the verdict, E Jean Carroll looks forward to receiving the $5m in damages that the jury awarded her in Carroll II,” Ms Kaplan said in a statement on Wednesday.

In May, a jury in Manhattan found Mr Trump liable for sexually assaulting the former Elle columnist at the luxury Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s, and defaming her by angrily calling the claims a “hoax”.

The jury ruled Mr Trump was not liable for rape.

Mr Trump appealed the verdict, claiming that $2m in compensatory damages awarded to Ms Carroll for sexual assault was “excessive” because the jury found he had not raped her.

He claimed the $2.7m award for defamation was based on “pure speculation.”

Ms Carroll, 79, first revealed details of the sexual assault in a book excerpt that ran in New York magazine in June 2019.

Donald Trump has lost a bid for a retrial (Associated Press)

When Mr Trump denied the claims and attacked her personally, she sued him for defamation in a case that has become known as Carroll I.

Last week, the Department of Justice said it no longer considered Mr Trump immune from the first defamation lawsuit brought by Ms Carroll while he was president.

The case is expected to proceed to trial in January.

Then in 2022, Ms Carroll sued the former president for sexual assault in a separate lawsuit after New York passed a law allowing survivors a one-year window to hold their abusers accountable regardless of when the assault took place.

E Jean Carroll leaves a Manhattan courthouse after a jury found the former president liable for sexual assault and defamation (Associated Press)

That lawsuit, dubbed Carroll II, went to trial earlier this year, where the writer testified that Mr Trump led her to a dressing room on a deserted floor of Bergdorf Goodman, pushed her up against a wall and sexually assaulted her.

Mr Trump declined to testify in his own defence. 

Judge Kaplan’s ruling is the latest setback for Mr Trump, as he battles a series of lawsuits and criminal cases.

In March, Mr Trump became the first former or current president to face criminal charges when a Manhattan grand jury voted to indict him on criminal charges over the hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the days before the 2016 presidential election. 

He has pleaded not guilty.

In June, Mr Trump was arraigned at a Miami federal courthouse on 37 federal charges over his handling of classified documents, including national defence information, after leaving the White House. He has pleaded not guilty.

This week, Mr Trump revealed he had received a “target letter” from special prosecutor Jack Smith for a sprawling Justice Department investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.