New York judge to sentence Trump in hush money case before inauguration

NEW YORK: New York judge Juan Merchan presiding over President-elect Donald Trump's hush money case has set sentencing for 10 days before his January 20 inauguration and said he was not inclined to impose jail time.

Merchan said Trump, the first former president ever convicted of a crime, can appear either in person or virtually at his January 10 sentencing.

The judge upheld Trump's conviction in an 18-page decision.

The judge said that instead of incarceration he was leaning towards an unconditional discharge — meaning the real estate tycoon would not be subject to any conditions.

The sentence would nevertheless see Trump entering the White House as a convicted felon.

The 78-year-old Trump potentially faced up to four years in prison but legal experts — even before he won the November presidential election — did not expect Merchan to send the former president to jail.

"It seems proper at this juncture to make known the Court's inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration," the judge said, noting that prosecutors also did not believe a jail term was a "practicable recommendation."

Trump, who is expected to lodge an appeal that could potentially delay his sentencing, denounced the decision late Friday.

"This illegitimate political attack is nothing but a Rigged Charade," he wrote on his platform Truth Social.

Calling Merchan a "radical partisan," Trump added that the order was "knowingly unlawful, goes against our Constitution and, if allowed to stand, would be the end of the Presidency as we know it."

Trump was convicted in New York in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.

Trump's attorneys had sought to have the case dismissed on multiple grounds, including the Supreme Court's landmark ruling last year that former US presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.

Merchan rejected that argument but he noted that Trump will be immune from prosecution once he is sworn in as president.

"Finding no legal impediment to sentencing and recognising that Presidential immunity will likely attach once Defendant takes his Oath of Office, it is incumbent upon this Court to set this matter down for imposition of sentence prior to January 20, 2025," the judge said.