Judge delays sentencing in hush money case against Donald Trump until after November election – American Press

A judge on Friday agreed to delay sentencing in Donald Trump's hush money case until after the November election, granting him a hard-fought reprieve as he deals with the aftermath of his criminal conviction and heads into the home stretch of his presidential campaign.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan, who is also considering a defense motion to overturn the verdict on immunity grounds, postponed Trump's sentencing until November 26, three weeks after the final votes are cast in the presidential election.

The convention was scheduled for September 18, about seven weeks before election day. The new date is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

The delay, Trump's latest legal windfall, means the presidential election will be decided without voters knowing whether the Republican candidate will go to prison.

Merchan said in a four-page decision that he was delaying sentencing “to avoid any appearance, however unjustified, that the proceedings have been influenced or are attempting to be influenced by the upcoming presidential election in which the defendant is a candidate.”

“The court is a fair, impartial and apolitical institution,” he added, writing that his decision “should dispel any impression otherwise.”

Trump's lawyers pushed for the delay on several levels, filing petitions with the judge and asking a federal court to intervene, arguing that punishing the former president in the midst of his campaign to retake the White House would amount to election interference.

Trump's lawyers argued that delaying sentencing until after the election would also give him time to consider next steps after Merchan rules on the defense's motion to overturn his conviction and dismiss the lawsuit over the U.S. Supreme Court's July immunity ruling.

In his order on Friday, Merchan postponed a decision on this until November 12.

A federal judge on Tuesday denied Trump's request that the U.S. District Court in Manhattan take over the case from Merchan's state court. Had they succeeded, Trump's lawyers said they would have sought to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case on immunity grounds. Trump has appealed the federal court's decision and asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the case after the conviction. That court has not yet made a decision.

Trump faced the possibility of multiple criminal trials this election year, having been impeached four times since March 2023. But a series of decisions over the past two months, culminating with Friday's postponement of sentencing, have largely cleared his legal schedule. The hush money case is the only one that has gone to trial.

In July, a judge dismissed a federal case in Florida accusing Trump of illegally hoarding classified documents. At the same time, the Supreme Court's immunity decision caused significant delays in another federal case in Washington, DC, accusing Trump of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss. An election case in Georgia is also ongoing.

“There should be no conviction in the Manhattan District Attorney's witch hunt for election tampering,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement after Merchan's ruling. He said all cases against Trump should be dismissed because of the Supreme Court's decision.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which prosecuted the case, did not comment on the defense's request for a delay and sided with Merchan.

“A jury of 12 New Yorkers quickly and unanimously found Donald Trump guilty on 34 counts,” said prosecutors' spokeswoman Danielle Filson. The prosecution, she said, “stands ready for sentencing on the new date set by the court.”

Election Day is November 5, but many states allow voters to cast their ballots earlier, and some states are even planning to wait until a few days before or after September 18.

Trump was found guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. Daniels claims she and Trump had a sexual encounter 10 years earlier after meeting at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe.