NEW YORK—New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan today upheld President-elect Donald Trump’s guilty verdict in his state-level “hush money” conviction. Merchan also signaled to defense counsel for Trump that he would be required to serve a sentence but would not face prison time as he returns to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20.
In late May 2024, Trump was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a conspiracy to silence AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels; she maintains the two had an affair during a celebrity golf tournament held at Lake Tahoe in 2006. The president-elect has continuously denied the affair countless times despite the guilty convictions.
"While this court, as a matter of law, must not make any determination on sentencing prior to giving the parties and defendant an opportunity to be heard, it seems proper at this juncture to make known the court's inclination to not impose any sentence of incarceration,” reads an 18-page order of the New York state court reviewed by AVN.
This means that Trump will not be sent to prison but will be proscribed sentencing during a hearing on Jan. 10—literally just over a week before the president-elect is set to return to the Oval Office. Note that Merchan additionally declined to vacate Trump’s guilty verdict in alignment with a previous ruling from earlier in December 2024.
In that ruling, Merchan found Trump was not immunized by an expanded presidential immunity doctrine that protects current and former presidents from prosecution for any "official acts” they perform. Applying the standards laid out by the Supreme Court in the presidential immunity doctrine case, Merchan found Trump acted unofficially.
That means Trump will be the first sitting president in the history of the United States to be a convicted felon. Steven Cheung, Donald Trump’s communications director, via the Associated Press (AP), responded to Merchan’s ruling by saying that “there should be no sentencing, and President Trump will continue fighting against these hoaxes."
Trump’s legal team may appeal Merchan’s ruling to an appeals court, but the AP’s coverage suggests that this is nearly impossible in New York state.
"As such, in balancing the aforementioned considerations in conjunction with the underlying concerns of the presidential immunity doctrine, a sentence of an unconditional discharge appears to be the most viable solution to ensure finality and allow [the] defendant to pursue his appellate options,” explained Merchan in his order’s conclusion.
