The New York Supreme Court rejected Trump’s bid to delay sentencing in the cover-up case | News about Donald Trump
The US president-elect has already appealed to the Supreme Court to prevent sentencing this week for his criminal conviction.
The New York Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by President-elect Donald Trump to delay the sentencing of his criminal conviction last year over those adult movie actress payouts.
A New York appeals court judge on Thursday issued a brief order refusing to grant a hearing to Trump’s legal team.
That leaves the U.S. Supreme Court with possibly the president-elect’s last option to prevent a sentencing hearing scheduled for Friday, just 10 days before Trump is due to take office on Jan. 20.
The Republican, who previously served as president from 2017 to 2021, was found guilty in late May of 34 counts of forging business documents related to hush-money payouts for Stormy Daniels, an actress in adult films.
Prosecutors alleged that the payments, made ahead of the 2016 presidential election, were intended to cover up allegations of a potentially politically damaging sexual relationship with Daniels. Trump ended up winning that race.
But he denied that such a relationship took place and pleaded not guilty in this case. In May, he became the first US president ever to be convicted of a crime.
He has continued to deny any wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a political “witch hunt”.
Earlier this week, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court for an immediate suspension of the sentencing “to prevent grave injustice and damage to the institution of the Presidency and the work of the federal government”.
They argued that a top court ruling last year granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution meant some of the evidence should not have been introduced in the case.
Lawyers have too pushed Trump’s belief to be kicked out.
Prosecutors in Manhattan opposed Trump’s bid to stay in a Supreme Court filing Thursday morning.
“Defendant now asks this court to take extraordinary steps to intervene in an ongoing state criminal trial to prevent the imposition of a scheduled sentence – before the trial court enters a final judgment and before any direct appellate review of the defendant’s conviction. There is no basis for such intervention,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office wrote.
The judge in the case, Judge Juan Merchan, said last week that he was not inclined to sentence the president-elect to prison and would likely release him unconditionally.
That would find Trump guilty, but not jail time, fines or probation.
