Trump receives sentence without penalty in his hush money case

President-elect Donald Trump appears remotely for a sentencing hearing before New York State Judge Juan Merchán in the criminal case in which he was convicted in 2024 on charges related to money paid to a porn star to maintain her silence , in New York Criminal Court in Manhattan in New York on January 10, 2025. (AP)

NEW YORK, Jan. 11 (AP): President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday to no punishment in his landmark hush money case, a sentence that allows him to return to the White House without the threat of jail time or a fine.

With Trump appearing on video from his Florida estate, the sentencing quietly capped an extraordinary case filled with moments unthinkable in the United States just a few years ago.

It was the first criminal trial and first conviction of a former US president and a major presidential candidate. The New York case became the only one of Trump’s four criminal charges that has gone to trial and possibly the only one that will. And the sentence came 10 days before his inauguration for his second term.

In about six minutes of court testimony, a calm but insistent Trump called the case “a government weaponization” and “an embarrassment to New York.” He maintained that he did not commit any crime.

“It’s been a political witch hunt. It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election and obviously that didn’t work,” the Republican president-elect said in a video, with American flags in the background.

After the roughly half-hour procedure, Trump said in a post on his social media site that the hearing had been a “despicable sham.” He reiterated that he will appeal his conviction.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchán could have sentenced the 78-year-old to up to four years in prison. Instead, Merchan chose a ruling that sidestepped thorny constitutional issues by effectively ending the case but ensured that Trump will become the first president to take office with a felony conviction on his record.

Trump’s free sentence, called unconditional release, is rare for felony convictions. The judge said he had to respect Trump’s upcoming legal protections as president, while also giving due consideration to the jury’s decision.

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to expunge a jury verdict,” said Merchan, who had indicated beforehand that he planned to sentencing without penalty.

As Merchan spoke the phrase, Trump sat upright, his lips pursed and his brow furrowed slightly. He tilted his head to the side as the judge wished him “good luck in his second term.”

Before the hearing, a handful of Trump supporters and critics gathered outside. One group held a banner that read, “Trump is guilty.” The other held one that said: “Stop the partisan conspiracy” and “Stop the political witch hunt.”

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office brought the charges, is a Democrat. In this rule-breaking case, the former president and incoming president were charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, tried for nearly two months, and convicted by a jury on all counts.

However, the legal detour – and the sordid details aired in court about a plot to bury accusations of infidelity – did not harm him with voters, who elected him in November to a second term. Joining Trump, as he appeared virtually Friday from his Mar-a-Lago estate, was defense attorney Todd Blanche, with his partner Emil Bove in the New York courtroom.

Trump has tapped both to senior positions in the Justice Department. Prosecutors said they supported a no-sentence sentence but criticized Trump’s attacks on the legal system throughout the case.

“The former and future president of the United States has engaged in a coordinated campaign to undermine his legitimacy,” said prosecutor Joshua Steinglass. Afterward, Trump was expected to return to the task of planning his new administration.

Later Friday he was scheduled to host conservative House Republicans as they met to discuss GOP priorities. The specific charges in the hush money case concerned checks and ledgers. But the underlying allegations were sordid and deeply intertwined with Trump’s political rise.

Trump was accused of altering his business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels. She was paid, at the end of Trump’s 2016 campaign, not to tell the public about a sexual encounter she claims the two had a decade earlier.

He says nothing sexual happened between them and he didn’t do anything wrong. Prosecutors said Daniels was paid — through Trump’s personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen — as part of a broader effort to prevent voters from learning about Trump’s alleged extramarital escapades. Trump denies that the alleged meetings occurred.

His lawyers said he wanted to silence the stories to protect his family, not his campaign. And although prosecutors said Cohen’s reimbursements for paying Daniels were misleadingly recorded as legal expenses, Trump says that’s simply what they were. “This is why they impeached me,” Trump lamented to the judge on Friday. “It’s amazing, actually.”

Trump’s lawyers tried unsuccessfully to prevent the trial and later to get the conviction overturned, the case dismissed, or at least the sentencing postponed. Trump’s lawyers have leaned heavily on claims of presidential immunity from prosecution, and in July they got a boost from a Supreme Court decision granting former commanders in chief considerable immunity.

Trump was a private citizen and presidential candidate when Daniels was paid in 2016. He was president when the repayments to Cohen were made and recorded the following year. Merchan, a Democrat, repeatedly postponed sentencing, initially scheduled for July.

But last week he set the date for Friday, citing the need for “finality.” Trump’s lawyers then launched a series of last-minute efforts to block the sentencing. His last hope was dashed Thursday night with a 5-4 ruling by the Supreme Court that refused to delay sentencing. Meanwhile, the other criminal cases that once loomed over Trump have ended. or stalled before trial.

After Trump’s election, special counsel Jack Smith closed federal prosecutions over Trump’s handling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. A statewide election interference case in Georgia is mired in uncertainty after prosecutor Fani Willis was fired.