Friday, January 03, 2025, 11:58 p.m
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Donald Trump is to be sentenced on January 10 in the “Stormy Daniels” case, 10 days before his inauguration as president, decided on Friday, January 3, the judge of the case, who specified, however, that he is not inclined to impose a sentence of the prison.
The “Stormy Daniels” file refers to the concealment of payments, in the 2016 election campaign, made in exchange for silence to a porn star who claimed to have had an intimate relationship with Donald Trump.
Judge Juan Merchan said he rejected an appeal by Trump, who had asked for the case to be dismissed following his victory in the presidential election. The judge declared that the Republican president-elect can appear in person or virtually at the sentencing, which will take place just 10 days before his inauguration, reports Reuters.
Merchan stated that a sentence of “unconditional release” – meaning no custody, fine or probation – would be “the most viable solution”.
In Trump’s second motion to dismiss the case since his conviction in May, defense attorneys argued the case will haunt him during his presidency and hinder his ability to lead.
The first motion filed by Trump – which claimed that a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity was violated – was also unsuccessful.
Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 26, but Merchan postponed that date indefinitely after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case, said there are steps other than the “last resort” of overturning the jury’s verdict that could assuage Trump’s concerns that he could be distracted by a criminal case while he is president. They suggested several options for Merchan, including delaying sentencing until Trump, 78, leaves the White House in 2029, or guaranteeing a sentence that does not involve prison time.
Prosecutors also said the judge could simply dismiss the case with a note that Trump was never convicted and his conviction was neither upheld nor overturned on appeal. They said a similar approach is used in cases where a defendant dies after being convicted but before sentencing.
The case began with a $130,000 payment that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump 10 years earlier, which the president-elect denies. In May, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying tax records to hide the payment. It was the first time that a US president – former or in office – was convicted or charged with a criminal offense.
Trump has pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to damage his 2024 campaign.
On December 16, Trump lost a separate attempt to overturn the conviction in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that presidents cannot be prosecuted for their official actions and evidence of their official actions cannot be presented in criminal cases regarding personal conduct.
In rejecting Trump’s request, Merchan said the prosecution of “personal acts of falsification of business records presents no danger of intrusion into the authority and function of the executive branch.”
Falsification of accounting records is punishable by up to four years in prison, but incarceration is not mandatory. Before his election victory, legal experts were already saying that Trump was unlikely to be jailed because of his lack of criminal record and his advanced age, but that a prison sentence was not impossible.
Trump was also indicted in three other state and federal criminal cases in 2023: one involving classified documents he kept after leaving the White House and two others involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
He pleaded not guilty in all three cases. The Justice Department requested the dismissal of the two federal cases after Trump’s election victory.
Trump’s criminal case in Georgia on charges stemming from his effort to overturn the state’s 2020 election loss is on hold.
Source: ziare.com
