NEW YORK –
In an extraordinary turn, a judge on Friday set US President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for January 10 – just over a week before his return to the White House. ), but promised not to imprison him.
Judge Juan M. Merchán, who presided over Trump’s trial, said in a written decision that he would sentence the former and future president to what is known as probation, in which a case is dismissed if a defendant avoids re-arrest. .
The development marks another turn in the singular case.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records. It involved an alleged scheme to conceal a payment of money to porn actress Stormy Daniels in the final weeks of Trump’s first campaign in 2016. The payment was made to prevent her from going public with claims that she had had sexual relations with the Trump married years before. He says his story is false and that he did nothing wrong.
After Trump’s election on Nov. 5, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.
Trump’s lawyers urged Merchan to throw it out. They said failing to do so would pose unconstitutional “disturbances” to the incoming president’s ability to govern the country.
Prosecutors acknowledged there should be some accommodations for his upcoming presidency, but insisted the sentence should stand.
They suggested several options, such as freezing the case during his sentence or guaranteeing him a non-jail sentence. They also proposed closing the case and formally taking note of both his conviction and his undecided appeal, a novel idea drawn from what some state courts do when criminal defendants die while appealing their cases.
Trump takes office on January 20.
