How much did Donald Trump pay to settle the rape accusations lawsuit?

1. What the juries actually decided and the dollar figures they imposed

In May 2023 a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in compensatory damages; that verdict addressed the civil sexual-abuse claim and did not find rape under the narrow New York Penal Law definition explained at trial ^{[1] [6]}. In a separate January 2024 federal trial focused on statements Trump made after Carroll’s initial allegation, a jury returned an $83.3 million award for defamation and related harms — a figure that combined punitive damages, compensatory awards and funds the jury said would be necessary to help repair Carroll’s reputation online ^{[2] [3]}.

2. Appeals and enforcement: courts affirmed parts of the awards but collection is a separate step

Federal rulings and appeal activity confirm that courts resisted efforts to erase or shrink the judgments: appellate and district-court activity affirmed the $5 million sexual-assault judgment and the larger defamation award faced motions but judges denied relief that would relieve Trump of the monetary obligations at those stages ^{[5] [4]}. Those sources discuss denials of relief and affirmation but do not provide a line-by-line accounting showing that Trump has paid the total sums in cash to Carroll, which is a different legal and practical process than a judgment being entered ^{[4] [5]}.

3. Precision matters: “rape” versus “sexual abuse” and why that affects headlines and settlements

Coverage repeatedly stresses the legal distinction reached by juries: Carroll’s claim of rape in criminal terms was not the label the jury entered; instead the civil jury found sexual abuse and awarded damages on that basis, a nuance that courts and news outlets noted while also reporting the larger defamation findings against Trump ^{[1] [6]}. That semantic distinction has driven both media attention and later litigation over wording in amended complaints and defenses — a factor that shaped how different outlets and parties characterized the case ^{[7] [8]}.

4. Other related payments and settlements complicate the money picture

Separately, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to Donald Trump to settle a defamation suit stemming from an anchor’s incorrect statements that he had been “found liable for rape,” a media-network settlement that is distinct from Carroll’s lawsuit but landed in the same subject area of competing defamation claims and public confusion over legal labels ^[9]. Reporting highlights how multiple civil suits, trials, and media settlements around the same subject have created overlapping narratives about who paid whom and why — underscoring why precise source citations are necessary ^{[9] [7]}.

5. What the available sources do and do not show about actual payment

The documents and coverage cited establish the judicial awards — $5 million and $83.3 million — and report on appeals and motions ^{[1] [2] [5] [4]}. However, the sources provided do not offer a definitive, itemized record in this corpus showing that Trump has turned over those amounts in cash to Carroll or that all enforcement steps (collections, appeals, stays, offsets) are complete; public reporting tends to separate the “judgment entered” stage from the “money actually collected” stage ^{[4] [5]}.

6. Bottom line answer

Courts ordered Donald Trump to pay $5 million for the sexual-abuse finding and an additional $83.3 million for defamation tied to E. Jean Carroll’s claims — a combined total of $88.3 million in judgments — while separate reporting notes ABC News paid Trump $15 million in an unrelated defamation settlement ^{[1] [2] [9]}. The sources here confirm the judgments and the ABC settlement but do not conclusively document, within this set of reporting, the final cash-collection status of the $88.3 million judgment against Trump ^{[4] [5]}.