The writer E. Jean Carroll triumphed over President Trump on Monday when the Supreme Court refused to consider overturning a jury’s verdict that he was liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
Carroll celebrated the victory in a brief note on her Substack blog, writing in all capital letters, “WE WON!”
“THIS WIN IS FOR EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD!” Carroll wrote.
The unanimous federal jury found that a preponderance of evidence supported Carroll’s claim that Mr. Trump sexually abused her during a mid-1990s encounter in a New York City department store. Mr. Trump did not attend the 2023 civil trial, and his attorneys called no witnesses before the jury awarded Carroll $5 million.
The jury of six men and three women deliberated for less than three hours.
Mr. Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations since they first surfaced in 2019, when she went public with a book excerpt published in New York Magazine.
He has also appealed a separate federal jury’s January 2024 verdict finding him liable for making further defamatory statements against Carroll. That jury awarded her another $83 million. Mr. Trump indicated in court filings he wanted Supreme Court review of both cases.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said the Supreme Court’s decision “affirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald J. Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll. His multiple efforts to appeal that verdict have all failed and today’s ruling ends his quest to avoid accountability for his actions.”
A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s legal team called the case a “Democrat-funded” hoax. “President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again,” the spokesman said, in reply to a comment on the president’s legal defeat in the Carroll case.
Mr. Trump claimed in his appeal of the sexual abuse case that Carroll’s claims were “implausible.” He argued testimony in the case stretched “credulity past the breaking point,” and railed against the trial judge’s decision to allow testimony from other women who alleged inappropriate sexual conduct at his hands.
Carroll urged the Supreme Court to decline to hear the appeal. She argued that Mr. Trump failed to raise any argument that would be grounds for the Court to overturn the jury’s verdict. She said the Second Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that evidence from the other women was properly admitted at trial, and the outcome of the case would have been the same even without it.
Attorneys for Carroll said during the eight-day trial that her allegations fit a pattern, or “modus operandi,” for Mr. Trump. In addition to two other women who described Mr. Trump suddenly turning casual confrontations into alleged sexual misconduct, the jury heard from witnesses who said Carroll confided in them after the incident. The jurors were also shown an “Access Hollywood” video clip in which Trump could be heard describing with vulgar language grabbing women’s genitals.
The Second Circuit denied Mr. Trump’s appeal in December 2024, and in June 2025 rejected a request for an en banc review, in which all the judges on the court would have considered the case.
The Supreme Court was Mr. Trump’s last hope of overturning the case.
The jury rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped, though the trial judge, Lewis Kaplan, later wrote that the conclusion that Mr. Trump was liable for sexually abusing Carroll by forcefully inserting his fingers was an “implicit determination that Mr. Trump digitally raped her.”
