Judge sets Trump’s sentencing in hush money case for Jan. 10, but signals no jail time

NEW YORK (AP) — In an extraordinary turn, a judge Friday set President-elect Donald Trump’s sentencing in his hush money case for Jan. 10 — little over a week before he’s due to return to the White House — but indicated he wouldn’t be jailed.

The development nevertheless leaves Trump on course to be the first president to take office convicted of felony crimes.

Judge Juan M. Merchan, who presided over Trump’s trial, signaled in a written decision that he’d sentence the former and future president to what’s known as a conditional discharge, in which a case gets dismissed if a defendant avoids rearrest.

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 his swearing in on Jan. 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 publicizing claims she’d had sex with the married Trump years earlier. He says that her story is false and that he did nothing wrong.

After Trump’s Nov. 5 election, Merchan halted proceedings and indefinitely postponed the sentencing so the defense and prosecution could weigh in on the future of the case.

Trump’s lawyers urged Merchan to toss it. They said 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.

They suggested various options, such as freezing the case during his term or guaranteeing him a no-jail sentence. They also proposed closing the case while formally noting both his conviction and his undecided appeal — a novel idea drawn from what some state courts do when criminal defendants die while appealing their cases.