The US Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Donald Trump’s appeal this week leaves intact one of the most consequential legal findings against him: a federal jury’s determination that he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll.
The Court’s decision, issued without comment and with no dissents, closes the door on the $5 million verdict reached in May 2023. A New York jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation in that case, though it did not find him liable for rape under the statute’s narrow definition.
The presiding judge later clarified that the jury’s findings did meet the common understanding of the term, since they had concluded Trump forcibly and nonconsensually penetrated Carroll with his fingers.
The Carroll case did not end there. A second trial in January 2024 awarded Carroll an additional $83.3 million after a judge found Trump liable for further defaming her with 2019 statements. That judgment was upheld by the federal appeals court in September 2025, after Trump’s lawyers unsuccessfully argued he was shielded by presidential immunity. Combined, the two verdicts total roughly $88 million.
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Carroll’s case sits inside a far broader pattern. At least 28 women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct since the 1970s, ranging from rape and assault to non-consensual kissing and groping.
Most allegations surfaced or resurfaced after October 2016, when a recording emerged of Trump describing grabbing women without consent (remarks he later called “locker room talk” and apologized for). Several women have said that hearing Trump deny the conduct on television was what motivated them to come forward.
Few of those other cases reached a courtroom. Trump’s first wife, Ivana, alleged a “violent assault” during their 1990 divorce proceedings, a claim she later said should not be read literally.
Businesswoman Jill Harth sued in 1997 alleging harassment and assault; the suit was withdrawn after a related business dispute settled.
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Former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos sued for defamation in 2017 after Trump called her a liar, but withdrew the case in 2021, saying she had “secured the right to speak freely about her experience.”
Trump has consistently denied all allegations against him, framing them as politically coordinated attacks. In a 2019 countersuit against Carroll, a judge dismissed Trump’s claim and wrote that Carroll’s accusation of rape was “substantially true.”
Despite repeated threats to sue his accusers and news organizations that reported on them, Trump has pursued only one such case to litigation, the unsuccessful countersuit against Carroll.
The Carroll verdicts have also become entangled with a separate controversy over Trump’s decades-long friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Files released following the 2025 Epstein Files Transparency Act revealed previously secret FBI investigations into misconduct allegations involving Trump dating back to the 1990s, including a 1990 allegation that prompted multiple FBI interviews.
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The releases have kept scrutiny of Trump’s personal conduct in the headlines well beyond the courtroom, even as the Carroll judgments themselves are now legally final.
