Trump to be sentenced in hush money trial but judge signals no prison time
President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced in his hush money trial after a judge upheld the conviction, however he signaled he will not serve prison time.
Judge Juan Merchan hinted in a written decision that he'd sentence Trump to what's known as a conditional discharge, in which a case gets dismissed if a defendant avoids re-arrest.
The sentencing date has been set for January 10 - a little over a week before he's due to return to the White House.
The decision means Trump is on course to becoming the first president to take office as a convicted felon.
Merchan rejected Trump’s push to dismiss the verdict and throw out the case on presidential immunity grounds and because of his impending return to the White House.
The judge said he found “no legal impediment to sentencing” Trump and that it was “incumbent” on him to sentence Trump prior to the inauguration on January 20.
“Only by bringing finality to this matter” will the interests of justice be served, Merchan wrote.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
They involved an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the last weeks of Trump’s first campaign in 2016.
The payout was made to keep her from publicising claims she’d had sex with Trump years earlier.
Trump denies any wrongdoing and says that Daniels' story is false.
After the US election, Merchan halted proceedings and postponed the sentencing indefinitely, and granted Trump's request to file a motion to dismiss the case.
Trump's lawyers argued that it would otherwise pose unconstitutional “disruptions” to the incoming president’s ability to run the country.
Prosecutors acknowledged there should be some accommodation for his upcoming presidency, but they insisted the conviction should stand.
Trump will take office as the first former president to be convicted of a crime and the first convicted criminal to be elected to the office.
The hush money case was the only one of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial.
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