ABC News has agreed to pay $15 million to Donald Trump's U.S. presidential library to settle a lawsuit over anchor George Stephanopoulos' inaccurate on-air claim that the president-elect had been held civilly liable for violating the 'writer E. Jean Carroll.

According to settlement documents made public Saturday, ABC will also post a note on its website expressing regret over the claim in a March 10 segment to Stephanopoulos. this week program and pay $1 million in legal fees to Trump's lawyer.

In a statement, ABC News said, "We are pleased that the parties have reached an agreement to dismiss the lawsuit under the terms of the court filing."

Trump sued Stephanopoulos and ABC for defamation days after the anchor claimed during an interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-South Carolina, that Trump had been "convicted of rape," that he misstated the verdicts of the two Carroll's claims against him.

Last year, Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming Carroll and was ordered to pay her $5 million. In January, he was found liable on additional defamation claims and ordered to pay Carroll US$83.3 million. Trump is appealing both verdicts.

Neither verdict involved a finding of violation as defined under New York law.

The judge in both cases, Lewis Kaplan, said the jury's conclusion was that Carroll had failed to prove that Trump violated her "within the narrow and technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law." .

Kaplan noted that the definition of rape was "much narrower" than how rape is defined in modern common parlance, in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes and elsewhere.

The judge said the verdict did not mean that Carroll "failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her, as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.'" In fact ... the jury found that Mr. Trump did just that."