For years, a rumor has claimed that U.S. President Donald Trump secretly paid tens of millions of dollars to settle multiple allegations that he sexually assaulted minors.
A frequently shared version (archived) of the claim has appeared as a meme, titled, “TRUMP RESUME FOR THE PRESIDENCY.” Under that heading is list of six named children, each paired with a specific age, location, year, description of alleged abuse, and an alleged settlement amount:
1: Michael parker, 10-years old, oral rape Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, 1992. Trump paid his parents a $3 million settlement.
2: Kelly Feuer, 12-years old, $1 million settlement paid in 1989, allegations of forced intercourse, Trump Tower, NY, NYC.
3: Charles Bacon, 11 years old, $3 million, allegations of oral and anal intercourse, 1994, Trump Tower, NY, NYC.
4: Rebecca Conway, 13 Years old, claimed intercourse & oral sex. Trump Vineyard Estates, Charlottesville, VA, 2012, $5 million settlement.
5: Maria Olivera, 12 years old. Her family was paid $16 million to settle allegations of forcible intercourse – occurring in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, 1993
6: Kevin Noll: 11 years old, anal rape, Trump Tower, NY, NYC, 1998. Settlement details unknown.
(Facebook page Don’t Be Weird)
The image ends with a caption reading “ANY OTHER JOE WOULD BE ROTTING IN PRISON BUT MAGA SAID … THIS DUDE WILL MAKE A GREAT PRESIDENT!”
It has circulated on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit and X, often shared as evidence that Trump is a “child rapist” whose wealth and political power have allegedly kept him out of prison.
In short, there was no credible evidence that any of the six named children exist as accusers, that any such lawsuits were ever filed, or that Trump paid the settlements described in the meme. The origin of the rumor is an uncorroborated list published on a blog, not a court document or credible news investigation.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said the claims were “obviously false.”
We investigated a similar meme in 2020 that claimed Trump had paid at least $35 million to settle child-rape allegations and likewise found no evidence that such settlements existed.
Where the rumor came from
The rumor traces back to a Jan. 16, 2019, blog post (archived) on Legal Schnauzer, titled, “Donald Trump has paid about $30 million to settle child-sex complaints, including a 2012 incident at Albemarle Estate in Charlottesville, Virginia.”
That post in turn cites an article at Wayne Madsen Report (WMR), a blog run by American writer Wayne Madsen, titled, “Why is Trump so afraid of [ex-Trump lawyer Michael] Cohen’s testimony?” (In 2020, the article was only available to members.)
The Legal Schnauzer piece quotes WMR as saying that Trump had paid roughly $30 million to settle “child-sex complaints” since 1989, and that the alleged settlements extended “beyond those widely reported in the mainstream press.”
WMR claimed it had received a list of child-sex settlement claims “from a reputable Republican source,” but it presented no documents, court filings, or corroborating evidence for these purported cases. The only stated basis was an unnamed Republican source. As such, we were unable to independently verify it.
WMR is not a reputable, mainstream investigative outlet and has been frequently described as being run by a conspiracy theorist or spreading conspiratorial views. Fact-checking organization Lead Stories, which investigated a similar meme in 2021, likewise described WMR as “a blog which was described by the Encyclopedia of American Loons as an ‘utterly deranged nutter with a mind unclouded by facts, evidence, or reason.'”
We contacted Legal Schnauzer and WMR seeking supporting evidence, and we will update this story if we receive a response.
Six cases, zero evidence
The six names most often cited online: Michael Parker, Kelly Feuer, Charles Bacon, Rebecca Conway, Maria Olivera, Kevin Noll. For each name, the meme specifies the child’s age (10-13 years old), a Trump-owned property and year, a description of alleged sexual assault and a specific settlement amount (or “unknown” for one case).
If any of these were real lawsuits in U.S. courts, there would be some record of them, such as a case docket, court filings, media reports, or later mentions in books or legal databases — even if the specific terms of any settlement were kept confidential. However, no public records, credible news reports or court documents corroborate the existence of any of the six alleged child victims or the multimillion-dollar settlements listed.
The Katie Johnson lawsuit
WMR also pointed to two pseudonymous accusers, “Katie Johnson” and “Maria P.,” who allegedly were raped as minors at the Manhattan townhouse of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a one-time friend of Trump, in 1994.Â
In fact, there were two related lawsuits filed in 2016 by the same anonymous woman, first as “Katie Johnson” in California and then as “Jane Doe” in New York, accusing Trump and Epstein of raping her when she was 13. Both cases were ultimately dismissed or withdrawn, with no trial, no public finding of guilt and no announced settlement.
In 2020, we reported the lawsuit was promoted by figures such as former TV producer Norm Lubow, who told us he helped file it under a false name, Al Taylor. As we’ve reported, it “does not disprove that Johnson is a real person, but it does show that those claims were aggressively promoted and aided by someone who has a professional history of using individuals to create fictional salacious drama, and that is a fact both he, and lawyers working for the plaintiff, attempted to downplay or hide.”
Bottom line
All in all, claims that Trump paid about $30 million to settle child-sex complaints brought by six named minors is unsupported by any credible evidence and rests entirely on an unverified list from a blog.
In July 2024, PolitiFact, a fact-checking organization, published a fact check of a Threads post sharing the same list, concluding, “We found no evidence of these cases or settlements.” LeadStories similarly stated in a 2021 article that “there is no evidence of the cases ever having been filed against Trump and no proof the listed legal actions exist.”
The in-question list was not the only social media claim asserting that Trump has been charged with, or paid to cover up, child rape. In 2024, Reuters debunked a rumor that The Associated Press (AP) had reported prosecutors were “reconsidering” bringing child rape and molestation charges against Trump. Reuters confirmed with the AP that no such story had ever been published and noted that “there are no credible news reports about any child molestation charges against Trump.”
