Donald Trump paid a $92 million (£71.6 million) bond on Friday that will allow him to appeal the E Jean Carroll defamation verdict.

The former president was found liable for defaming the journalist after she accused him of raping her decades ago.

In January, he was ordered by a federal jury to pay Ms Carroll $83.3 million, but recently asked that the judgment to be paused.

To appeal, he had to pay the $92 million bond – higher than the judgment itself, because he is also responsible for interest.

The bond is a promise from the company offering it that Mr Trump’s debt will be paid if he loses the appeal and refuses to pay personally.

Mr Trump previously argued that he shouldn’t have to post any security because Ms Carroll was sufficiently protected.

Ms Carroll had objected that this boiled down to Mr Trump saying “trust me”.

The appeal stemmed from a New York jury’s conclusion that Mr Trump had defamed Ms Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, in June 2019 by denying that he raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.

Jurors awarded Ms Carroll $18.3 million in compensatory damages – including $7.3 million for emotional harm and $11 million for harm to her reputation – as well as $65 million in punitive damages.

Mr Trump has said that he shouldn’t owe anything and alternatively that both sums should be reduced substantially.

He still has to post sufficient security for his expected appeal of last month’s $454.2 million verdict in a civil fraud case brought by Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York.

Mr Trump has offered to post a $100 million bond in that case, but Ms James said that any bond should cover the entire judgment.

The former president’s lawyers have said that it will be “impossible” to obtain a bond for the full amount.

District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the Carroll case, has yet to rule on Mr Trump’s motions to obtain a new trial and reduce the damages award.

In seeking a new trial, lawyers for Mr Trump said that the verdict was tainted by Ms Kaplan’s decision to strike Mr Trump’s testimony about his state of mind when he disparaged Ms Carroll.

According to the lawyers, Mr Trump’s statement that “I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and, frankly, the presidency” was relevant to whether he had acted maliciously, and that excluding it “all but assured” a large punitive damages award.

The lawyers also said that Ms Kaplan erred in instructing jurors about the burden of proof needed to show malice.

On Thursday, Ms Kaplan rejected Mr Trump’s bid to delay enforcing the verdict, and Mr Trump’s suggestion that he might suffer “irreparable injury” if forced to post a bond.

Last May, a different jury ordered Mr Trump to pay Ms Carroll $5 million for a similar October 2022 denial, finding that he had defamed and sexually abused her.

Mr Trump is appealing that decision, and set aside $5.55 million with the Manhattan court during that process.

Both appeals could take years. Ms Carroll is 80 and Mr Trump is 77.