What settlements has Donald Trump paid in alleged sexual assault or misconduct cases?
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
Donald Trump has been ordered to pay large court-awarded damages in one high-profile sexual-assault related civil case and has been connected to at least one other private settlement arising from an allegation years earlier; multiple other allegations were dropped or dismissed and, according to the available reporting, do not show recorded payments by Trump in the provided sources [1] [2] [3]. The largest and most documented judgment is the E. Jean Carroll litigation, which produced multimillion‑dollar awards that remain the central, litigated money claim tied to an allegation of sexual assault [1] [4] [5].
1. The E. Jean Carroll judgments: the single major court-ordered payout
E. Jean Carroll sued Donald Trump in two related actions that culminated in jury findings and significant damages awards: federal and state trials in 2023 produced verdicts holding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and the cases resulted in combined damages reported in the sources as in the tens of millions—summarized as roughly $88.3 million in one account and reflected in court opinions and reporting as the principal money judgment tied to an allegation of sexual assault [1] [4] [5]. The Carroll litigation has been subject to appeals and post-trial rulings about evidentiary matters and damages, and appellate decisions have reviewed but not erased the damages awards cited in the reporting [5].
2. Other alleged victims: settlements, withdrawals and dismissals in the public record
Beyond Carroll, reporting compiled in the sources documents a range of other claims that either were dropped, dismissed, or resolved by private settlement arrangements rather than by public jury award; for example, Jill Harth filed a 1997 lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and later voluntarily withdrew the suit after a related parallel case was settled by her husband, a sequence that sources describe as involving a settlement though the public record here does not specify a payment amount from Trump [2] [3]. Several high‑profile allegations ended without a court judgment against Trump: an anonymous plaintiff using pseudonyms in 2016 alleging abuse at Jeffrey Epstein parties had suits that were dismissed or dropped [6], and Summer Zervos’s defamation suit proceeded for a time before Zervos withdrew, again leaving no public record in these sources of a payment by Trump tied to an admission of liability [2].
3. Distinguishing court judgments, private settlements and political narrative
The reporting indicates a necessary distinction: the Carroll awards are court‑rendered damages subject to appeal and public documentation, while other matters referenced in the media were either dropped, dismissed, or resolved privately with limited public disclosure of terms—meaning the public record in these sources identifies fewer confirmed payments by Trump for alleged sexual assault or misconduct than the total number of public allegations [1] [3] [2]. Some reporting also situates defamation litigation and media‑related settlements adjacent to the sexual‑assault coverage (for instance, a reported $15 million settlement involving a media defamation matter is noted in one source), but the sources separate those as defamation/media settlements rather than admissions of sexual‑assault liability [1].
4. What the sources do not show and why that matters
The supplied sources do not provide a comprehensive ledger of every private settlement or undisclosed payment that may exist; where private settlements are described (such as the Harth-related withdrawal tied to a husband’s settlement or references to other dropped suits), amounts and precise terms are not fully reported in the documents provided here, so it is not possible from these sources alone to enumerate every payment Trump may have made outside of court-ordered damages [3] [2]. The single publicly documented, litigated financial exposure connected directly to an allegation of sexual assault in the provided materials is the Carroll damages awards and the related appellate history documenting legal challenges to that judgment [1] [4] [5].
5. Competing narratives and the legal record
Advocates for Carroll emphasize the jury findings, statutory mechanisms (like New York’s Adult Survivors Act) that allowed the suit to proceed, and appellate affirmations of evidentiary rulings; defenders of Trump have contested the facts, the application of evidence rules, and legal interpretations and continue to pursue appeals, which means the litigation and public claims remain contested even where damages were awarded [4] [5]. Other claimants’ choices to withdraw or dismiss suits have been explained variously by plaintiffs as strategic or tied to private resolutions; journalists and court dockets in the cited reporting underscore that many allegations never produced public monetary judgments against Trump [3] [2].