President-elect Trump’s legal team urged a judge to hold off on sentencing him on Jan. 10 in his New York criminal conviction ahead of his inauguration.
Judge Juan Merchan last week ruled that Trump’s sentencing could move forward this Friday despite his imminent return to the White House, rejecting the former president’s arguments that his election victory should mark an end to the case.
Trump’s attorneys told Merchan they are appealing his recent rulings upholding the jury’s guilty verdict and argued that the judge must pause the case in the meantime.
“By virtue of President Trump’s filing of appellate proceedings raising his claims of Presidential immunity, all proceedings in this Court are automatically stayed by operation of federal constitutional law,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the new filing, which was made public on Monday.
“In the alternative, even if such a stay were discretionary, the Court should grant such a stay. The Court should vacate the sentencing hearing scheduled for January 10, 2025, and suspend all further deadlines in the case until President Trump’s immunity appeals are fully and finally resolved, which should result in a dismissal of this case, which should have never been brought in the first place,” they continued.
They asked Merchan to notify the parties by 2 p.m. EST whether he will cancel the sentencing and said they would be filing two appeals on Monday in state court.
A New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election so she would keep an alleged affair secret.
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