Written by Luke Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced on Jan. 10 in the criminal case in which he was found guilty of paying hush money to a porn actress, but he is unlikely to face prison time or other penalties. The judge said Friday.
Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling means that Trump will be required to appear for a court hearing just 10 days before his inauguration on January 20, an unprecedented scenario in US history. Before Trump, no U.S. president — former or current — had been accused or convicted of a crime.
The judge said Trump, 78, may attend the sentencing hearing either in person or virtually.
He wrote that he was not inclined to sentence Trump to prison, and that a sentence of “unconditional release” — meaning no detention, fine, or probation — would be “the most viable solution.”
The case dates back to $130,000 that Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her silent about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, but he denies this. A jury in May convicted Trump of falsifying records to hide payments before the 2016 election.
Imposing the ruling would pave the way for Trump to appeal. In his ruling, Merchan acknowledged that Trump had made clear he intended to appeal.
In a post on his Truth social network early Saturday, Trump said he has never falsified business records.
“This is a false and made-up charge by a corrupt judge who is only doing the job of administering injustice to Biden and Harris,” Trump wrote. “He created a situation where there was nothing.”
Merchan announced his plan to rule against Trump’s motion to dismiss the case because of his presidential election victory. Trump’s defense lawyers said that keeping the case pending during his presidency would hinder his ability to govern.
Merchan rejected that argument, writing that setting aside the jury verdict would “undermine the rule of law in immeasurable ways.”
“Defendant’s status as president-elect does not require a radical and ‘rare’ application of (the court’s) authority to grant a (dismissal) motion,” Merchan wrote in the decision.
Merchan also rejected Trump’s argument in a Dec. 3 lawsuit that the dismissal was justified because his “civic and financial contributions to this city and nation are too numerous to count.”
While acknowledging Trump’s service as president, the judge said Trump’s public statements denouncing the judicial system were also a factor for him in determining how Trump’s character influenced the decision.
Merchan criticized what he called Trump’s “continuous and unsubstantiated attacks” against the integrity of criminal proceedings, and noted that he had found him guilty of 10 counts of contempt during the trial for repeatedly violating an order restricting out-of-court testimony regarding witnesses. And others.
“The defendant went to great lengths to broadcast on social media and other forums his disrespect for judges, juries, grand juries, and the judicial system as a whole,” Merchan wrote.
“The defendant’s character and history must be analyzed in relation to the rule of law and the third branch of government,” the judge said, referring to the judiciary. “In this context, it is not weighted in his favour.”
“maximum treatment”
In May, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up payments received by Daniels. He has pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Alvin Bragg, the Democratic prosecutor who brought the charges, to damage his 2024 campaign.
Trump’s sentencing was initially scheduled for July 11, 2024, but was postponed several times. Merchan said on Thursday that Trump’s request in August to postpone the ruling until after the election implied that he had agreed to be sentenced during the transition period.
“Any claim the defendant may make that circumstances have changed as a result of the defendant’s victory in the presidential election, while appropriate, is disingenuous,” Merchan wrote.
Bragg did not oppose postponing the ruling until after the elections. In September, Merchan postponed it to November 26.
After Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election, the judge postponed sentencing indefinitely to determine the next steps.
Bragg’s office said there are measures that fall short of the “drastic remedy” of overturning the jury verdict that could allay Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president, such as postponing the sentence until after Trump leaves the White House in 2029.
Merchan wrote on Thursday that he found this alternative “less desirable” than sentencing Trump before the inauguration.
Presidential immunity
On December 16, Trump lost a separate bid to overturn the hush money conviction in light of the US Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for their official actions, and that evidence of their official actions cannot be presented in criminal cases involving… Personal behavior.
In rejecting Trump’s proposal to fire Merchan, he said prosecution for “crucial personal acts of falsifying business records poses no risk of interference with the authority and function of the executive branch.”
Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison, but imprisonment is not required. Before he won the election, legal experts said Trump was unlikely to be imprisoned due to his lack of criminal history and age.
Trump was charged in three more state and federal criminal cases in 2023: one related to secret documents he kept after leaving office and two more 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 won the election.
Trump’s state criminal case in Georgia on charges stemming from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state is in limbo.
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