Stormy Daniels case: Donald Trump to be sentenced ten days before entering the White House

The newly elected US President Donald Trump, who was convicted in New York in the spring for making hidden payments to a porn star, will be sentenced on January 10, ten days before his inauguration. He will not go to prison, the US justice system announced on January 3, 2025

The man who will be the 47th President of the United States on January 20 has denounced a “masquerade”. Mr. Trump must “appear for sentencing, following his conviction, on January 10, 2025”, Manhattan District Court Judge Juan Merchan ordered Friday in a court document dated Friday. He said he was not “inclined to impose a prison sentence”to the former and future tenant of the White House, aged 78.

The New York State magistrate nevertheless recalled that a prison sentence – with a possible arrest warrant – was made legally possible by the historic criminal conviction last spring. The convicted person will have to appear in person in court, at the courthouse in the south of the large New York island of Manhattan, or remotely by video, but he has until Sunday to make his “preference” known.

Read also: Stormy Daniels case: bad news for Donald Trump, the American president fails to have his conviction overturned

“Aggravated accounting falsification”

After six weeks of trial in the middle of the election campaign, in an electric climate, Donald Trump became the first former American president (2017-2021) to be convicted on May 30.

The Manhattan court jury found him guilty of 34 counts for hidden payments to a porn star, Stormy Daniels, made just before the November 2016 presidential election.

He is accused of “aggravated accounting falsification to conceal a plot to pervert the 2016 election” which he won against Democrat Hillary Clinton.

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“Political attack illegitimate”

The court concluded that the $130,000 paid to Stormy Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, was intended to silence her about a brief sexual encounter in 2006 when Donald Trump was already married to Melania, who was pregnant with their son. The man denies any sexual relations.

Read also: Donald Trump trial: Stormy Daniels testifies and tells the story of her "brief encounter&quot with the former President of the United States

After months of appeals and the presidential victory on November 5, the Trump camp failed to overturn this historic verdict on the basis of presidential immunity. This immunity had been expanded on July 1 by a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. Under enormous political pressure, Judge Merchan had postponed sentencing several times since May 30.

In the evening, Donald Trump thundered on his Truth Social network against an “illegitimate political attack that is nothing more than a charade” and attacked Judge Merchan once again, “extremist partisan” and “without respect for the Constitution”.

The desire of this magistrate to go to the end of the criminal procedure “is a direct attack on the Supreme Court's decision concerning immunity”, wrote Donald Trump's spokesperson, Steven Cheung, earlier in a press release. He denounced “the witch hunts” orchestrated according to him by the outgoing administration of Joe Biden.

“Prudence, rigor and independence”

Mr. Trump’s lawyers—already named future number two, three, and four at the Justice Department—presented yet another appeal this fall against the Manhattan verdict, invoking their client’s presidential status as both the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president. Without success.

The fact remains that since his resounding re-election, the Republican has seen his criminal justice horizon clear almost completely. The federal justice system has dropped two criminal proceedings for illegal attempts to reverse the results of the November 2020 presidential election, lost to Joe Biden, and for withholding classified documents after his chaotic departure from the White House.

In civil proceedings, however, despite the immunity argument, Donald Trump remains liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in at least three cases tried in New York.

A novel scenario

The Stormy Daniels case, investigated and tried by the local courts of the State of New York, is therefore the only criminal case to go to its conclusion. A novel scenario in American history. Lawyers believe that it is much easier to impose civil liability on a sitting president than criminal liability.

But “the excellent” judge Merchan demonstrated in this case “prudence, rigor and independence”, rejoices with theAFP the professor of law at the University of Richmond Carl Tobias.