The US Supreme Court will not hear President Donald Trump’s appeal to review a civil case that found he defamed and sexually assaulted writer E. Jean Carroll.
In 2023, a New York jury awarded Carroll $5 million (£3.6 million) in damages for her civil claim that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and then called the incident a hoax on social media.
Trump has denied the charges and has repeatedly said the judge overseeing the civil trial improperly allowed evidence to be presented that influenced how the jury treated him.
Last year, a federal appeals court agreed with the jury’s verdict and said there was no need for a new trial. Trump then asked the high court to intervene.
The Supreme Court did not provide details about its decision not to hear the case as usual.
It was Trump His last hope for overturning the jury’s unanimous verdict means he will have to pay Carroll the compensation she is owed.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement that the Supreme Court’s decision “confirms once and for all the jury’s unanimous verdict that President Donald Trump sexually assaulted and defamed E. Jean Carroll.”
“His numerous attempts to appeal this conviction have failed, and today’s decision ends his bid to avoid responsibility for his actions,” she added.
Carroll’s lawyer had not previously commented on the president’s decision to file the complaint with the Supreme Court.
“The American people stand with President Trump as he demands an immediate end to all witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded parody of the Carroll hoax,” a spokesman for Trump’s legal team told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
“President Trump will continue to defeat liberal justice as he continues to focus on his mission to make America great again.”
In the petition, Trump’s lawyers argue that Carroll’s lawyer should not have allowed jurors to view the 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which the president says he fondled and kissed women.
Trump’s comments about the jury’s findings in the case led to a separate jury ordering him to pay Carroll $83 million for defaming her. In September, a panel of federal judges rejected his appeal of the decision.
Although Trump was found to have defamed Carroll and sexually assaulted her, the jury rejected her claim of rape as defined in New York’s criminal code.
Carroll, a former magazine columnist who is now 81, sued Trump for attacking her in the mid-1990s in a Manhattan department store dressing room. The slander stemmed from a 2022 post by Trump on his Truth Social platform in which he refuted her claim.
Trump said Carroll was “not my type” and that she lied.