Appeals court temporarily blocked payment to E. Jean Carroll while President Trump presses his appeals, and the 2nd Circuit conditioned that delay on raising the bond to cover accruing interest, leaving the door open to a Supreme Court fight.
E. Jean Carroll is still waiting to collect a civil judgment she won against President Donald Trump, and Trump’s legal team is using every appellate option at its disposal. The roots of the dispute go back to a 2022 finding that held Trump liable for an alleged sexual assault in the 1990s and for later defaming Carroll. That split verdict produced multiple awards and a long, drawn-out legal battle over whether a president can claim immunity for actions tied to his private conduct.
The defamation award that dominates headlines totaled roughly $83.3 million, after an earlier jury returned a separate $5 million verdict tied to the initial abuse finding. Trump has maintained his denial of Carroll’s allegations and has asked higher courts to revisit the results, arguing presidential immunity should erase liability. His team has appealed through the Second Circuit and signaled it may seek Supreme Court review if necessary to resolve the immunity question once and for all.
The appeals process has left Carroll in limbo, and the Second Circuit recently agreed to delay collection while appeals proceed. Carroll asked the court to make sure any delay included compensation for interest accumulating on the judgment, and the panel obliged by conditioning the stay on a larger bond. That increased bond is meant to protect Carroll financially if the appeals ultimately fail and the judgment is enforced.
Carroll has taken Trump to civil trial twice after publicly accusing him during his first White House term of sexually assaulting her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. The president denies her claims and wants the Supreme Court to toss both verdicts.
The first jury found Trump liable of sexually abusing Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million. That verdict also found he later defamed the writer in a 2022 statement.
The recent appeals concern the second trial. A separate jury ordered Trump to cough up $83.3 million for defaming Carroll in denying her story when she first came forward.
Carroll, who insists Trump’s appeals are meritless, did not object to the delay as long as the president increases his bond by $7.5 million to account for additional interest he’ll owe, if unsuccessful.
The 2nd Circuit agreed in a brief order issued Monday.
“We are pleased that the Second Circuit conditioned the stay on President Trump posting a bond of nearly $100 million — increasing the $91,630,000 bond he originally posted by another $7,462,492.74 to account for the accruing post-judgment interest,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said in a statement.
[…]
So far, Trump has not emerged successful. The full 2nd Circuit bench late last month declined to overrule panel decisions rejecting Trump’s claims.
That block of quoted material lays out the procedural history and the bond numbers in plain terms, and it shows why both sides are watching the appellate calendar closely. For Trump, accepting a higher bond and stalling payment are tactical moves to keep the issue in play while his lawyers press for immunity protections. For Carroll, insisting on a larger bond was a straightforward demand to make sure she doesn’t lose real value while the case winds through appeals.
The practical effect of the court’s move is to pause enforcement without denying Carroll the chance to be made whole later, assuming the verdicts stand. The increase took the posted security from about $91.63 million to nearly $100 million, which is meant to cover post-judgment interest during the appeals. That calculation is a narrow, pragmatic fix meant to balance the litigants’ competing interests while higher courts weigh the legal questions.
The litigation now points toward the Supreme Court as the likely final forum for resolution unless the appeals succeed earlier. If the Court takes the case, it will face a core constitutional question about the scope of presidential immunity for allegedly private conduct. Until then, the 2nd Circuit’s condition keeps the money tied up but preserves Carroll’s chance to recover if the judgments survive appellate review.
Keep in mind, this is how Carroll reacted to the judgment back then:
