Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Greensboro Coliseum on March 2, 2024 in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Alex Wong | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Donald Trump lost his bid Thursday to delay payment of an $83.3 million civil libel judgment against author E. Jean Carroll.
Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan denied President Trump’s request, giving the former president until Monday to pay the amount to Carroll or have the judgment suspended while he appeals a January jury verdict that found him defamatory. You may have to post bail or assets to cover the value. After she accused him of rape, she said:
President Trump had asked Kaplan to delay the ruling until after he rules on post-trial claims in the case.
In a court filing Wednesday, President Trump’s lawyer Alina Haba asked the court to delay the move “until three business days after the court rules on his motion to suspend.”
Kaplan rejected that request in Thursday’s order, writing that Trump’s “current situation is the result of his own diplomatic actions.”
“He’s had to sort out his finances since January 26th with the knowledge that he might have to finalize this sentence, but he waited until 25 days after the jury’s verdict to decide,” Kaplan said. “I called for a temporary suspension of this.”
Trump’s lawyers say the former president would suffer “irreparable harm” if forced to post bail for the entire sentence because he would have to pay irreparable costs. rejected the claim.
The judge stated that “the costs of ongoing litigation in the absence of an injunction do not amount to ‘irreparable harm’ within the relevant meaning of that term.”
A spokeswoman for Carroll’s attorney declined to comment.
Haba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In addition to Carroll’s lawsuit, Trump is also ordered to pay a $454 million judgment in a civil business fraud lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
President Trump has not yet been forced to pay that amount or post collateral to secure the judgment. But that could change quickly if the appeals court refuses to suspend the sentence.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was found in a separate Manhattan federal civil trial last year to have sexually abused Carroll and to have defamed her with comments in 2022.
He later posted $5.6 million in cash as collateral but appealed the jury verdict ordering her to pay $5 million in the case.
Both last year’s trial and the latest trial involved Ms. Carroll’s claims that President Trump raped her in his dressing room after a chance meeting at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.
Mr. Trump has denied raping the author and said he made up the allegation to promote a book he was writing and cause political harm.
