On Monday, the Supreme Court denied President Donald Trump’s request to reconsider a 2023 civil judgment holding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. The court issued its denial without comment, leaving in place a roughly $5 million damages award.
Carroll’s legal dispute with Trump began after she alleged in 2019 that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York during the 1990s. Trump has denied the allegation and said he did not know Carroll before she publicly accused him.
Carroll filed one of her lawsuits in 2022 under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily allowed some otherwise time-barred claims. In 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded Carroll approximately $5 million. The Supreme Court declined to review the judgment in June, and Monday’s rejection of Trump’s rehearing petition ends his options for challenging that verdict before the high court.
Supreme Court rehearing requests are rarely approved and generally require significant new circumstances or controlling legal developments. Trump’s attorney argued that unresolved questions about presidential immunity in a separate Carroll case could also affect the 2023 judgment because statements Trump made while president were introduced as evidence.
That separate case concerns remarks Trump made about Carroll while in office. In 2024, another federal jury awarded her $83.3 million for defamation. Trump’s lawyers are seeking Supreme Court review of that ruling, contending that presidential immunity protects the statements.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the latest denial makes the 2023 verdict final. A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team criticized the litigation as politically motivated and maintained the claims were false.
The decision does not resolve Trump’s challenge to the $83.3 million judgment. It does, however, fully conclude Supreme Court proceedings involving the earlier $5 million award.