The US supreme court on Monday declined Donald Trump’s request to review a New York jury’s 2023 verdict that found him liable for sexually abusing writer E Jean Carroll,and then defaming her.
The justices did not provide an explanation or reasoning, and no public dissents were noted. The decision leaves intact the $5m civil judgment against Trump that was returned by the jury after the two-week trial in 2023.
The supreme court’s decision comes after a three-judge court panel at the second US circuit court of appeals in Manhattan upheld the jury’s verdict in 2024 , andrejected Trump’s arguments that the trial was unfair because the judge let jurors hear evidence of his alleged past sexual misconduct.
In 2025, Trump, who has repeatedly denied the allegations against him, then asked the supreme court to review the case and overturn the verdict. Lawyers for Carroll asked the judges to reject the request.
Trump reacted to the supreme court’s decision on Monday, writing on Truth Social: “Surprisingly, the Supreme Court declined to ‘review’ a Fake Case brought against me.”
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, also issued a statement on Monday in response to the decision.
“Today’s Supreme Court decision affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald J Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E Jean Carroll,” Kaplan said. “His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions.”
Trump has been battling Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, ever since she published an excerpt from her memoir in 2019 in which she alleged that Trump had raped her in the 1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan. She filed the lawsuit three years later. Trump has repeatedly denied Carroll’s claims and accused her of lying.
Carroll also filed a separate defamation suit against Trump and in 2024, a separate Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $83.3m in damages for defaming her in 2019.
Trump’s lawyers are currently appealing that ruling, and have said that they intend to ask the supreme court to hear that appeal as well.
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Last September, a federal appeals court upheld the $83.3m jury award. Trump is challenging the $83m award on several grounds, according to the Associated Press, including asserting “absolute immunity” for comments he made about Carroll while president.
In May, a federal appeals court ruled that Trump will not have to pay the $83.3m judgment until the supreme court either reviews the case or rejects to take it up. However, the court also required that Trump increase the bond by $7.46m, to account for interest that would accrue on Carroll’s award during any further legal proceedings.
