New York
E. Jean Carroll paid $5.8M in Trump sex abuse, defamation case
NEW YORK (AP) — The writer E. Jean Carroll has collected over $5.6 million that a jury awarded in her sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump, court records and her lawyers said.
The payment — representing the $5 million jury award, plus interest — was made Monday from an account where it had been held in escrow since the 2023 verdict, according to court records. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, confirmed the payment Tuesday.
“We are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment,” Kaplan said in a statement.
Trump’s lawyers have vowed to continue appealing.
Trump deposited the money in an escrow account shortly after the jury ruled against him. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money.
Trump’s lawyers then sought but were denied an emergency order to block the payment. The one-sentence denial set no conditions on how Carroll may use the money. Her lawyers have said in court papers that she plans to put it in a retirement account.
Trump’s attorneys have since filed another appeal seeking to stop or reverse the payment.
The jury found Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in a New York luxury department store dressing room and defamed her after she told the story publicly in a memoir in 2019, during his first term as president.
Trump insisted nothing sexual happened between him and Carroll, now 82, a former advice columnist. Trump claimed she was “totally lying” and “ not my type “ in a 2019 interview. He said he didn’t know her, dismissing a 1987 photo of them and their then-spouses at a party as inconsequential, and he accused her of harboring political motives and trying to sell books at his expense.
Trump didn’t attend the trial, where Carroll testified that their flirtatious and friendly chance encounter at the department store turned violent.
Carroll sued Trump after New York changed its laws to give sexual abuse survivors a fresh chance to sue over attacks that happened in the distant past.
Trump is also appealing $83 million in defamation compensation granted to Carroll by a separate Manhattan jury after a 2024 trial where Trump briefly testified.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually abused. Carroll has agreed to be named.
New York
Mahmoud Khalil files suit alleging a ‘public-private’ conspiracy to suppress critics of Israel
NEW YORK (AP) — Mahmoud Khalil is suing the federal government and several private groups, alleging they were part of a conspiracy to suppress criticism of Israel by doxing, jailing and attempting to deport supporters of the pro-Palestinian movement.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court Tuesday, alleges a coordinated campaign among senior officials of President Donald Trump’s administration, leaders of the Heritage Foundation and two online surveillance groups, Canary Mission and
Betar.
According to Khalil’s lawyers, that “public-private partnership” — first brought to light in a separate trial last year — may violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era law that sought to restrict government coordination with vigilante groups.
Inquiries to the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar were not immediately returned on Tuesday.
A former graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil, 31, gained prominence as a spokesperson and leader for student activists protesting against Israel and its actions in Gaza.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested in March 2025 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his campus apartment. He quickly became the face of the Trump administration crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
He then spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child, before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release.
Khalil’s deportation case, a priority for the Trump administration, has moved with unusual speed through executive-branch-controlled immigration courts, and may soon wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He has forcefully denied that his role in pro-Palestinian protests amounts to antisemitism.
“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” he previously told The Associated Press. “It’s as simple as that.”
Georgia
Teen charged in Apalachee High School shooting to appear in court for plea and sentencing
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has set a plea and sentencing hearing later this month for a teenager accused of killing four people in a September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Colt Gray, 16, had pleaded not guilty to charges including murder in the shooting that killed two students and two teachers, and left several others wounded, at the high school northeast of Atlanta.
In a court filing Friday, the judge overseeing his case set a “Non-Negotiated Plea and Sentencing Hearing” to begin July 24. The judge had previously said that if Gray wanted to plead guilty ahead of trial, he must notify the state and court by this coming Wednesday.
A non-negotiated plea means that the state and the defense have not reached an agreement on a sentence. Unlike a negotiated plea, or plea deal, where a defendant reaches an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty in exchange for an agreed upon sentence and possibly reduced charges, this leaves sentencing entirely up to the judge who makes a decision after giving each side a chance to present a summary of the case and a sentencing recommendation.
Colt Gray’s attorney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Sunday.
Gray’s trial had been set to begin in mid-October in Columbia County, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Barrow County where the shooting happened, after the judge agreed to a defense request to change the venue.
Gray’s father, Colin Gray, was convicted by a jury in March on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors said he gave his teenage son the assault-style rifle used to open fire at the school. The elder Gray is set to be sentenced later this month.
The Sept. 4, 2024, shooting killed teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire. Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult with 55 total counts, including murder, cruelty to children and 25 counts of aggravated assault.
Investigators testified that Colt Gray carried the rifle given to him by his father onto the school bus with the barrel wrapped in a poster board. They said the teenager left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle, shooting people in a classroom and hallway.
Investigators have said the teenager carefully plotted the shooting at the high school of 1,900 students. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the boy left a notebook in his classroom with step-by-step instructions and a diagram to prepare for the assault, including an estimate that he could kill as many as 26 people and wound as many as 13 others.
Colt and Colin Gray were interviewed by sheriff’s deputies about an online threat linked to Colt Gray in May 2023. Colt Gray denied making the threat at the time. He skipped 8th grade, enrolled as a freshman at Apalachee after the academic year began, and then skipped multiple days of school.
Family members had been seeking psychological help for Colt Gray before the shooting, but it appeared he never saw a counselor.
Colt’s mother, Marcee Gray, who was separated from Colin Gray, told investigators that she had argued with Colin Gray weeks before the shooting, asking him to secure his guns and restrict Colt’s access. Instead, over time, he bought the boy ammunition, a gun sight and other shooting accessories, records show.
Colt Gray even created a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, prosecutors said.
Canada
Fashion mogul Peter Nygard pleads guilty in Quebec sex assault case
MONTREAL (AP) — Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard pleaded guilty Monday to sexual assault and forcible confinement in Quebec, the latest conviction in the downfall of the founder of the once-global Nygard International clothing company. Nygard also faces U.S. racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
The 84-year-old appeared by video from an Ontario prison, where he is serving an 11-year sentence after a Toronto jury convicted him in 2023 of sexually assaulting four women. He also faces extradition to the United States on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
Quebec Crown prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme said Nygard’s plea came unexpectedly ahead of what had been scheduled as a 10-day judge-alone trial.
“Mr. Nygard’s change of heart was quite sudden,” Laflamme told reporters, adding the complainant had been prepared to testify.
Evidence presented by the prosecution, which the defense did not contest, showed Nygard took advantage of his position as a renowned fashion designer to lure young women.
It says the victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, met Nygard in a bar when she was 18. She wanted to be a fashion model.
They met for lunch at her workplace to discuss her career, and he invited her to his Montreal penthouse, saying he had forgotten his keys. Once in the penthouse, he locked her in the bedroom and sexually assaulted her.
According to the court documents, Nygard told the victim she could move to the Bahamas and promised her a life of luxury under the condition that she would have sex with him and other women.
The events took place between November 1997 and November 1998.
Quebec prosecutors charged Nygard in 2022 with one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement.
Nygard, who immigrated to Canada from Finland as a child, built a global fashion empire and hosted lavish parties at his Bahamas estate, Nygard Cay, before his business collapsed amid sexual assault allegations that led to investigations in Canada and the United States.
Judge Nathalie Fafard accepted evidence of Nygard’s Toronto conviction after finding similarities between the two cases.
Defense lawyer Gerri Wiebe said Nygard chose not to contest the Quebec charges before his pending extradition to the United States. She said he is in frail health and argued that transferring him now could endanger his life.
U.S. prosecutors allege Nygard spent about 25 years using his fashion company, employees and financial resources to recruit women and underage girls in the United States, Canada and the Bahamas for sexual exploitation. He has pleaded not guilty to the U.S. charges.
Sentencing was postponed pending a medical assessment. The case returns to court Oct. 2, when lawyers are expected to present a joint sentencing recommendation.
Wiebe said the United States can only extradite Nygard once his legal matters in Canada are settled. She added that postponing the sentence ensures that Nygard can remain in the country.
E. Jean Carroll paid $5.8M in Trump sex abuse, defamation case
NEW YORK (AP) — The writer E. Jean Carroll has collected over $5.6 million that a jury awarded in her sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump, court records and her lawyers said.
The payment — representing the $5 million jury award, plus interest — was made Monday from an account where it had been held in escrow since the 2023 verdict, according to court records. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, confirmed the payment Tuesday.
“We are pleased to report that she has received the damages payment,” Kaplan said in a statement.
Trump’s lawyers have vowed to continue appealing.
Trump deposited the money in an escrow account shortly after the jury ruled against him. The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money.
Trump’s lawyers then sought but were denied an emergency order to block the payment. The one-sentence denial set no conditions on how Carroll may use the money. Her lawyers have said in court papers that she plans to put it in a retirement account.
Trump’s attorneys have since filed another appeal seeking to stop or reverse the payment.
The jury found Trump attacked Carroll in 1996 in a New York luxury department store dressing room and defamed her after she told the story publicly in a memoir in 2019, during his first term as president.
Trump insisted nothing sexual happened between him and Carroll, now 82, a former advice columnist. Trump claimed she was “totally lying” and “ not my type “ in a 2019 interview. He said he didn’t know her, dismissing a 1987 photo of them and their then-spouses at a party as inconsequential, and he accused her of harboring political motives and trying to sell books at his expense.
Trump didn’t attend the trial, where Carroll testified that their flirtatious and friendly chance encounter at the department store turned violent.
Carroll sued Trump after New York changed its laws to give sexual abuse survivors a fresh chance to sue over attacks that happened in the distant past.
Trump is also appealing $83 million in defamation compensation granted to Carroll by a separate Manhattan jury after a 2024 trial where Trump briefly testified.
The Associated Press generally does not identify people who say they have been sexually abused. Carroll has agreed to be named.
New York
Mahmoud Khalil files suit alleging a ‘public-private’ conspiracy to suppress critics of Israel
NEW YORK (AP) — Mahmoud Khalil is suing the federal government and several private groups, alleging they were part of a conspiracy to suppress criticism of Israel by doxing, jailing and attempting to deport supporters of the pro-Palestinian movement.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court Tuesday, alleges a coordinated campaign among senior officials of President Donald Trump’s administration, leaders of the Heritage Foundation and two online surveillance groups, Canary Mission and
Betar.
According to Khalil’s lawyers, that “public-private partnership” — first brought to light in a separate trial last year — may violate the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era law that sought to restrict government coordination with vigilante groups.
Inquiries to the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission and Betar were not immediately returned on Tuesday.
A former graduate student at Columbia University, Khalil, 31, gained prominence as a spokesperson and leader for student activists protesting against Israel and its actions in Gaza.
Khalil, a legal permanent resident who is married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested in March 2025 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in his campus apartment. He quickly became the face of the Trump administration crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
He then spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child, before a federal judge in New Jersey ordered his release.
Khalil’s deportation case, a priority for the Trump administration, has moved with unusual speed through executive-branch-controlled immigration courts, and may soon wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
He has forcefully denied that his role in pro-Palestinian protests amounts to antisemitism.
“My beliefs are not wanting my tax money or tuition going toward investments in weapons manufacturers for a genocide,” he previously told The Associated Press. “It’s as simple as that.”
Georgia
Teen charged in Apalachee High School shooting to appear in court for plea and sentencing
ATLANTA (AP) — A judge has set a plea and sentencing hearing later this month for a teenager accused of killing four people in a September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Colt Gray, 16, had pleaded not guilty to charges including murder in the shooting that killed two students and two teachers, and left several others wounded, at the high school northeast of Atlanta.
In a court filing Friday, the judge overseeing his case set a “Non-Negotiated Plea and Sentencing Hearing” to begin July 24. The judge had previously said that if Gray wanted to plead guilty ahead of trial, he must notify the state and court by this coming Wednesday.
A non-negotiated plea means that the state and the defense have not reached an agreement on a sentence. Unlike a negotiated plea, or plea deal, where a defendant reaches an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty in exchange for an agreed upon sentence and possibly reduced charges, this leaves sentencing entirely up to the judge who makes a decision after giving each side a chance to present a summary of the case and a sentencing recommendation.
Colt Gray’s attorney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Sunday.
Gray’s trial had been set to begin in mid-October in Columbia County, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from Barrow County where the shooting happened, after the judge agreed to a defense request to change the venue.
Gray’s father, Colin Gray, was convicted by a jury in March on charges including second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter after prosecutors said he gave his teenage son the assault-style rifle used to open fire at the school. The elder Gray is set to be sentenced later this month.
The Sept. 4, 2024, shooting killed teachers Richard “Ricky” Aspinwall, 39, and Cristina Irimie, 53, and students Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, both 14. Another teacher and eight more students were wounded, seven of them hit by gunfire. Colt Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, was charged as an adult with 55 total counts, including murder, cruelty to children and 25 counts of aggravated assault.
Investigators testified that Colt Gray carried the rifle given to him by his father onto the school bus with the barrel wrapped in a poster board. They said the teenager left his second-period class and emerged from a bathroom with the rifle, shooting people in a classroom and hallway.
Investigators have said the teenager carefully plotted the shooting at the high school of 1,900 students. A Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent testified that the boy left a notebook in his classroom with step-by-step instructions and a diagram to prepare for the assault, including an estimate that he could kill as many as 26 people and wound as many as 13 others.
Colt and Colin Gray were interviewed by sheriff’s deputies about an online threat linked to Colt Gray in May 2023. Colt Gray denied making the threat at the time. He skipped 8th grade, enrolled as a freshman at Apalachee after the academic year began, and then skipped multiple days of school.
Family members had been seeking psychological help for Colt Gray before the shooting, but it appeared he never saw a counselor.
Colt’s mother, Marcee Gray, who was separated from Colin Gray, told investigators that she had argued with Colin Gray weeks before the shooting, asking him to secure his guns and restrict Colt’s access. Instead, over time, he bought the boy ammunition, a gun sight and other shooting accessories, records show.
Colt Gray even created a shrine in his bedroom to Nikolas Cruz, the shooter in the 2018 massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, prosecutors said.
Canada
Fashion mogul Peter Nygard pleads guilty in Quebec sex assault case
MONTREAL (AP) — Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard pleaded guilty Monday to sexual assault and forcible confinement in Quebec, the latest conviction in the downfall of the founder of the once-global Nygard International clothing company. Nygard also faces U.S. racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
The 84-year-old appeared by video from an Ontario prison, where he is serving an 11-year sentence after a Toronto jury convicted him in 2023 of sexually assaulting four women. He also faces extradition to the United States on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges.
Quebec Crown prosecutor Jérôme Laflamme said Nygard’s plea came unexpectedly ahead of what had been scheduled as a 10-day judge-alone trial.
“Mr. Nygard’s change of heart was quite sudden,” Laflamme told reporters, adding the complainant had been prepared to testify.
Evidence presented by the prosecution, which the defense did not contest, showed Nygard took advantage of his position as a renowned fashion designer to lure young women.
It says the victim, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, met Nygard in a bar when she was 18. She wanted to be a fashion model.
They met for lunch at her workplace to discuss her career, and he invited her to his Montreal penthouse, saying he had forgotten his keys. Once in the penthouse, he locked her in the bedroom and sexually assaulted her.
According to the court documents, Nygard told the victim she could move to the Bahamas and promised her a life of luxury under the condition that she would have sex with him and other women.
The events took place between November 1997 and November 1998.
Quebec prosecutors charged Nygard in 2022 with one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement.
Nygard, who immigrated to Canada from Finland as a child, built a global fashion empire and hosted lavish parties at his Bahamas estate, Nygard Cay, before his business collapsed amid sexual assault allegations that led to investigations in Canada and the United States.
Judge Nathalie Fafard accepted evidence of Nygard’s Toronto conviction after finding similarities between the two cases.
Defense lawyer Gerri Wiebe said Nygard chose not to contest the Quebec charges before his pending extradition to the United States. She said he is in frail health and argued that transferring him now could endanger his life.
U.S. prosecutors allege Nygard spent about 25 years using his fashion company, employees and financial resources to recruit women and underage girls in the United States, Canada and the Bahamas for sexual exploitation. He has pleaded not guilty to the U.S. charges.
Sentencing was postponed pending a medical assessment. The case returns to court Oct. 2, when lawyers are expected to present a joint sentencing recommendation.
Wiebe said the United States can only extradite Nygard once his legal matters in Canada are settled. She added that postponing the sentence ensures that Nygard can remain in the country.
