The United States Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a final appeal filed by Donald Trump against his civil judgment ordering him to pay $5.6 million to the writer E. Jean Carroll. She accuses him of sexually assaulting her and then defaming her when she made the facts public. As it had already done in June when it rejected a previous appeal by the American president, the Court provided no reasoning for its decision.

In the meantime, Donald Trump paid $5.6 million to E. Jean Carroll in July — the damages a jury had ordered him to pay in 2023 in a civil case for sexually assaulting and then defaming her.

Sexual assault in 1996

In this case, the former journalist and columnist, now aged 82, accuses Donald Trump of assaulting her in a fitting room of a New York department store in 1996. When the allegations were made public in a book published in 2019, the billionaire called her a "nutjob" who had concocted a "con job".

In a separate defamation case in New York, Mr Trump was ordered to pay $83.3 million to Ms Carroll, a ruling that was upheld on appeal. But enforcement of that decision remains suspended pending a ruling by the Supreme Court on whether it will take up the case.