Saturday, January 4, 2025 - US President-elect, Donald Trump must be sentenced on Jan. 10 in the criminal case, a judge ruled on Friday, Jan. 3.
In May 2024, Trump was convicted on charges involving hush money paid to
a porn star.
On Friday, Justice Juan Merchan said he denied Trump's motion to
dismiss the case due to his presidential election victory.
The judge said the Republican president-elect may appear for the
sentencing, which will take place just 10 days before his inauguration, either
in-person or virtually.
Merchan wrote that a sentence of "unconditional discharge" -
meaning no custody, monetary fine, or probation - would be "the most
viable solution."
Trump's lawyers had argued in his second motion to dismiss the case that
having the case hang over him during his presidency would impede his ability to
govern.
However, Merchan rejected that argument, writing that setting aside the
jury's verdict would "undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable
ways."
"Defendant's status as President-elect does not require the drastic
and 'rare' application of (the court's) authority to grant the (dismissal)
motion," Merchan wrote in the decision, opens new tab.
Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but
Merchan pushed that back indefinitely after Trump won the
election.
Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office, which
brought the case, said there were measures short of the "extreme
remedy" of overturning the jury's verdict that could assuage Trump's
concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as
president.
They suggested several options for Merchan, including delaying the
sentencing until Trump, 78, leaves the White House in 2029, or guaranteeing a
sentence that would not involve prison time.
The prosecutors also said the judge could simply terminate the case with
a notation that Trump was never sentenced and that his conviction was neither
affirmed nor reversed on appeal. They said a similar approach was used in cases
where a defendant d!es after being convicted but before being sentenced.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 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 s£xual
encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies
it.
A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of
falsifying business records to cover up the payment. It was the first time a
U.S. president - former or sitting - had been convicted of or charged with a
criminal offense.
Trump pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Bragg, a
Democrat, to harm his 2024 campaign.
Trump on Dec. 16 lost a separate bid to toss the conviction in
light of the U.S. Supreme Court's July 1 decision that presidents cannot
be criminally prosecuted over their official actions, and that evidence of
their official actions cannot be presented in criminal cases over personal
conduct.
In denying Trump's motion to dismiss, Merchan said the prosecution over
"decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of
intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch."
Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison,
but incarceration is not required. Before his election victory, legal experts
said it was unlikely Trump would be locked up due to his lack of a
criminal history and advanced age.
Trump was charged in three other state and federal criminal cases in
2023: one involving classified documents he kept after leaving office and two
others involving 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 over charges stemming from his
effort to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state is pending.
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