Trump was saved from jail after a sentence of silence, days before his inauguration

NEW YORK: The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump will not go to jail or pay a fine for his criminal conviction stemming from money paid to a porn star for her silence, a judge ruled Friday (Jan. 10), but the sentence will put a guilty verdict on his record.

Judge Juan Merchán’s sentence to the unconditional freedom of Trump, 78, closes a case that loomed over his attempt to retake the White House a few days before his inauguration on January 20.

By granting an unconditional release, Merchan would place a guilty verdict on Trump’s permanent record, without any other legal sanctions such as custody, fine or probation.

Trump pleaded not guilty and promised to appeal the guilty verdict. He appeared with his attorney on television screens beamed into the courtroom with two American flags in the background.

“It’s been a political witch hunt,” Trump said before handing down the sentence, wearing a red tie with white stripes. “It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election and obviously that didn’t work.”

“I’m totally innocent, I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Trump, who did not testify during the six-week trial last year.

Now that he has been sentenced, he is free to appeal, a process that could take years and play out while he serves a four-year term as president.

Trump fought tooth and nail to avoid the spectacle of being forced to appear before a state judge so close to the date he is due to take office. The US Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a last-minute attempt by Trump to stop him.

Last year’s six-week trial unfolded against the extraordinary backdrop of Trump’s successful campaign to retake the White House. The ruling marks the culmination of the first criminal case brought against a United States president, past or present.

Trump will be the first president to take office with a criminal conviction.

Manhattan District Attorney, Democrat Alvin Bragg, charged Trump, the Republican, in March 2023 with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment of $130,000 from his former lawyer Michael Cohen to the film actress for adults Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denied it.

Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in that election.

The Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts on May 30. Prosecutors argued that despite the vulgar nature of the allegations, the case was an attempt to corrupt the 2016 election.

Critics of the businessman-turned-politician cited the charges and other legal entanglements he faced to bolster their claim that he was unfit for public office.

Trump changed the script. He argued that the case – along with three other criminal indictments and civil lawsuits accusing him of fraud, defamation and sexual abuse – was an effort by opponents to use the justice system as a weapon against him and harm his re-election campaign. He frequently lashed out at prosecutors and witnesses, and Merchan eventually fined Trump $10,000 for violating a gag order.

As recently as Jan. 3, Trump called the judge a “radical partisan” in a post on his Truth Social platform.

In a decision that day, Merchan said overturning the verdict would “immeasurably undermine the rule of law” and wrote that Trump’s behavior during the trial showed a lack of respect for the judiciary.

“The defendant has gone to great lengths to spread on social media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole,” Merchan said.