Judge orders Trump's $5m damages be released to E Jean Carroll

Judge orders Trump's $5m damages be released to E Jean CarrollImage source, Getty ImagesByMadeline HalpertPublished16 minutes agoA judge has ordered that writer E Jean Carroll be paid the more than $5m (£3.7m) US President Donald Trump owes her after he was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her in a civil case three years ago.Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday ordered that a clerk release the money - with interest - from an account where Trump deposited the funds after the ruling. Trump was pushing to delay the $5.8m payment after the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the case last month. In May 2023, a New York jury awarded Carroll the damages over her civil claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, and then branded the incident a hoax on social media. Trump denied the allegations.The BBC has contacted Trump's attorneys for comment. Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 82, accused Trump of attacking her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, and later defaming her on Truth Social in a 2022 post denying her allegations.The president has repeatedly claimed that the judge who oversaw the civil trial, Lewis Kaplan, improperly allowed evidence to be presented that negatively affected how the jury viewed Trump.A federal appeals court agreed with the jury's verdict last year and said Kaplan did not make errors that would warrant a new trial.Related topicsDonald TrumpNew York