E. Jean Carroll just won a huge victory in her sexual abuse and defamation case against Trump. She still might not get paid anytime soon.

• An appeals court upheld a jury verdict finding Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll.
• He owes her $5 million in damages for sexual abuse and defamation — but plans to keep appealing.
• Trump is also appealing a separate jury verdict for an additional $83.3 million in defamation damages.

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a verdict finding Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, starting a 30-day clock for her to receive the $5 million jury award, plus interest.

In an exhaustive, 77-page opinion, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals rejected all of the legal arguments brought by Trump in seeking to overturn the May 2023 trial verdict.

But Carroll, now 81 years old, shouldn't hold her breath. A spokesperson for Trump told Business Insider the president-elect plans to keep appealing the verdict.

The appeal could keep the cash frozen well into next year, at least, legal experts told BI.

In the year and a half since the jury verdict, the $5 million Trump owes Carroll — plus $500,000 to cover interest — has been sitting in an interest-bearing bank account controlled by the federal trial court.

If Trump does not file a further appeal in the next 30 days, the court will automatically transfer that $5.5 million and any further interest directly to Carroll and her attorneys, said Nick Newton, a former president of the National Association of Surety Bond Producers.

"Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today's decision," Carroll's attorney Roberta Kaplan told Business Insider in a statement. "We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties' arguments."

A spokesperson for Trump called Carroll's claims a "hoax" and said he would continue to appeal.

"The American People have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate, and they demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll Hoax, which will continue to be appealed," Steven Cheung told BI in an email. "We look forward to uniting our country in the new administration as President Trump makes America great again."

Trump's options for further appeals are two-fold, according to Michel Paradis, who teaches constitutional law at Columbia Law School. The funds would remain frozen until the appeals are exhausted, meaning that Carroll would need to wait longer before getting any of the jury's awards.

The president-elect can first seek an en banc review, meaning a review of Monday's three-judge decision by all 13 active judges on the Second Circuit, plus Senior Judge Denny Chin, Paradis said.

After that option, Trump could take his appeal to the US Supreme Court.

Winning — or even being considered — for en banc is a high bar, Paradis said. Trump would have to explain to the full Second Circuit why the issues are so important, and the three-judge panel's decision is so profoundly wrong that it needs to be overturned.

"In a case like this, it could take a few months" for the full panel to consider Trump's petition and any response they allow from Carroll's side, and then vote on whether to hear the case, he said.

"In this appeal, there were only basic legal questions in dispute, meaning how the law was applied, and the three-judge panel's review was limited to looking for an abuse of discretion," Paridis said.

Trump will seek review from the US Supreme Court next, Paradis predicted. The president-elect selected three of the nine justices in his first term. He could place more justices on the bench by the time oral arguments would take place.

The president-elect would first have to ask the high court to hear his appeal, and that process could keep the Carroll judgment frozen well into next year, he said.

"SCOTUS would likely not decide to hear the case until the end of next September at the earliest," he said.

It's not clear who will be on Trump's legal team if he continues to appeal the case.

John Sauer, who presented the oral argument before the Second Circuit, was designated by Trump to serve as the Justice Department Solicitor General in his next presidential term. Other attorneys who worked on the case, including Todd Blanche, Emil Bove, and Alina Habba, are set to serve other posts in the Justice Department or the White House.

Monday's decision is for one of two separate civil lawsuits E. Jean Carroll brought against Trump.

The second trial took place in January 2024, and concerned additional defamation damages over Trump disparaging Carroll and calling her a liar.

The jury in that case awarded Carroll $83.3 million. Trump is appealing that case, too, with a process that is running on a separate track.

Monday's appellate court decision largely focused on whether it was appropriate for US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, the trial judge, to allow certain types of evidence to be seen by the jurors who held Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll.

Trump's lawyers argued Kaplan should not have shown jurors the "Access Hollywood" tape, where Trump bragged about grabbing women by the genitals.

"The jury could have reasonably concluded from those statements that, in the past, Mr. Trump had kissed women without their consent and then proceeded to touch their genitalia," they wrote.

Trump's attorneys had also argued it was inappropriate to allow testimony from Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, two other women who had accused Trump of sexual misconduct. The Second Circuit judges agreed with Kaplan, ruling that their stories helped establish a pattern of conduct from Trump.

"The jury could reasonably infer from Ms. Stoynoff's testimony and the Access Hollywood tape that Mr. Trump engaged in similar conduct with other women — a pattern of abrupt, nonconsensual, and physical advances on women he barely knew," the judges wrote.