Trump must be sentenced in hush money criminal case on Jan. 10, judge rules

By Lucas Cohen for Reuters

The case arose from a payment Trump’s former lawyer made to Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election.
Photo: María Altaffer / Tobias SCHWARZ / AFP

Donald Trump must be sentenced in the criminal case in which he was found guilty of criminal charges related to paying hush money to a porn star on January 10, just days before his inauguration as president, a ruling ruled. judge.

Judge Juan Merchán denied Trump’s motion to dismiss the case due to his victory in the presidential election. The judge said the Republican president-elect can appear at the sentencing in person or virtually.

In Trump’s second motion to dismiss the case filed since his conviction in May, his defense attorneys argued that having the case on him during his presidency would impede his ability to govern. Trump’s first motion, which argued that the case contradicted a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, was unsuccessful.

Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but Merchan delayed it indefinitely after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.

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Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case, said there were measures other than the “extreme remedy” of overturning the jury’s verdict that could ease Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case. while serving as president.

They suggested several options for Merchan, including delaying sentencing until Trump, 78, leaves the White House in 2029, or ensuring a sentence that does not involve prison time.

Prosecutors also said the judge could simply end the case with a notation that Trump was never sentenced and that his conviction was neither upheld nor overturned on appeal. They said a similar approach was used in cases where a defendant dies after being convicted but before being sentenced.

The case arose from a $130,000 (NZ$230,000) payment that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.

In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time that a former or sitting United States president had been convicted or charged with a criminal offense.

Trump pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to damage his 2024 campaign. On December 16, Trump lost another attempt to overturn the conviction in light of the July 1 decision by the US Supreme Court that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for their official actionsand that evidence of his official actions cannot be presented in criminal cases for personal conduct.

In rejecting Trump’s motion to dismiss, Merchan said the charge for “decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion into the authority and function of the executive branch.”

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison, but jail time is not required. Before his election victory, legal experts said Trump was unlikely to be locked up because of his lack of a criminal record and his advanced age, but that a prison sentence was not impossible.

Trump was charged in three other state and federal criminal cases in 2023: one related to classified documents he kept after leaving office and two others related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

He pleaded not guilty in all three cases. The Justice Department moved to dismiss the two federal cases after Trump’s election victory.

Trump’s state criminal case in Georgia on charges stemming from his effort to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state is in limbo.

– Reuters