A 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 a clerk to release the money – with interest – from an account where Trump deposited it after the ruling.
Trump was pushing to delay the $5.8m payment to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision not to hear an appeal of the case.
In May 2023, a New York jury awarded Carroll the damages over her claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s, and then branded the incident a hoax on social media. Trump denied the allegations.
A spokesman for Trump’s legal team on Wednesday said: “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes.”