ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library and issue a public apology to settle a defamation lawsuit over inaccurate statements made by anchor George Stephanopoulos during a broadcast earlier this year.

The settlement, disclosed in court documents released Saturday, comes just days after U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid ordered the president-elect and Stephanopoulos to submit to four-hour depositions. The order excludes scheduled testimony from both sides.

Trump filed the defamation suit after Stephanopoulos claimed in a 10th episode of ABC News that This week in an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, that Trump had been “found liable for rape” in connection with the lawsuits filed by writer E. Jean Carroll.

The terms of the settlement require ABC News to post a note on its website expressing regret over the claim. The network will also pay $1 million in legal fees to Trump’s lawyers.

“We are pleased that the parties have agreed to dismiss the lawsuit under the terms in the court filing,” ABC News said in a statement.

Before the settlement, Reid ordered Trump to sit down in person in South Florida, leaving open the possibility for Stephanopoulos to attend remotely. Testimony was scheduled for the week of December 16, with each side limited to four hours of testimony.

In a court hearing before the order was issued, Reid expressed sympathy for defense attorney Nathan Siegel’s “frustration” that the president-elect avoided testifying. She acknowledged that while Trump had a “pretty good argument” that he can put aside during the election, now that the election is over, “he should be able to make himself available.”

The case stems from two previous verdicts involving Carroll. Last year, Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and was ordered to pay her $5 million. In January, he was ordered to pay Carroll $83.3 million for additional defamation claims, but will appeal both verdicts.

Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over both Carroll cases, clarified in July 2023 that the jury’s conclusion reflected specific legal definitions.

“The definition of rape in the New York Penal Code is much narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern language, as defined in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere,” he wrote.

The judge further noted that the jury’s conclusion meant that Carroll had failed to prove rape “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Code.” However, Kaplan emphasized that this does not mean that Carroll “did not prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her, as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape’.”

Trump’s attorney, Alejandro Brito, said during the pre-settlement trial that he would “do everything in my power to make the president available” for the deposition, citing logistical concerns about the Secret Service. After Siegel offered to take the deposition near Mar-a-Lago, both sides agreed to move the original trial date from April 7 to June 9.

In July, ABC News and Stephanopoulos tried to dismiss the lawsuit, saying Kaplan’s remarks meant the rape claim was “substantially true.” The motion was dismissed in federal court.

Unlike other trials that have been halted or delayed due to the president-elect’s impending return to the White House, this case was expected to continue into Trump’s second term because he was the plaintiff and it was a civil matter.

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.