The New York judge hearing President-elect Donald Trump’s hush money case on Friday imposed a 10-day sentence ahead of his Jan. 20 inauguration and said he was not willing to send her to prison.
Judge Juan Marchan said Trump, the first former president convicted of a crime, could appear in person or virtually at his sentencing on Jan. 10.
In an 18-page decision, Merchan rejected various motions from Trump’s lawyers seeking to have his conviction thrown out.
The judge said he was leaning toward unconditional release rather than prison terms — a much more lenient sentence that would still allow Trump to enter the White House as a convicted felon.
“It seems appropriate at this time to convey the Court’s desire not to impose any prison sentence,” the judge said, noting that prosecutors also do not believe a prison sentence is a “practical recommendation.”
In May, Trump was convicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels to prevent her from disclosing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter on the eve of the 2016 election. Had gone.
Trump’s lawyers had sought to dismiss the case on various grounds, including the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling last year that former US presidents are immune from prosecution for many official acts committed while in office.
Merchan rejected that argument but said Trump would have immunity from prosecution once he is sworn in as president.
“Finding no legal barriers to sentencing and recognizing that presidential immunity would potentially engage once the defendant takes the oath of office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this case on January 20,” Marchan said. , decide to give sentence before 2025.”
Trump also faced two federal cases brought by special counsel Jack Smith, but both were dropped under a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump was accused of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden and of deleting large amounts of top secret documents after leaving the White House, but the cases never went to trial.
Trump also faces fraud charges in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the southern state, but that case will likely be put to rest while he is in the White House.
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