NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday for falsifying business records in a years-old scheme to defraud voters, closing out the historic case that involved a hush money payment to a porn star and formalizing Trump as a convicted felon 10 days before his return to the White House.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan said the only lawful sentence he could impose was an unconditional discharge, meaning no jail time, probation, or fines other than around $375 in mandatory court fees, based on the expansive legal protections afforded to the president.

“Despite the extraordinary breadth of those protections, one power they do not provide is the power to erase a jury verdict,” the judge said.

“Donald Trump, the ordinary citizen — Donald Trump the criminal defendant — would not be entitled to such considerable protections.”

The president-elect appeared remotely for the 15th-floor proceeding in lower Manhattan’s 100 Centre St. on Microsoft Teams via his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, with two American flags as his backdrop. He wore a black suit and a red tie with yellow stripes and ignored Merchan when the judge wished him a good morning.

In comments to the court, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said prosecutors recommended Trump receive an unconditional discharge based on his “unique posture” and status as president-elect.

He also pointed to a line in the probation officer’s nonpublic report into Trump, which “noted that the defendant sees himself as above the law and won’t accept responsibility for his actions.”

Steinglass said Trump’s public rhetoric before and after the trial had legitimately endangered officials involved in the case and their families.

“Far from expressing any kind of remorse for his criminal conduct, the defendant has purposefully bred disdain for our judicial institutions and the rule of law. And he’s done this to serve his own ends and to encourage others to reject the jury verdict that he finds so distasteful,” Steinglass said, noting Trump had “ratcheted up” his bombast since Merchan had denied his bids to throw out the verdict.

“He has been unrelenting in his unsubstantiated attacks upon this court and its family, individual prosecutors and their families, the witnesses, the grand jury, the trial jury and the justice system as a whole.”

The prosecutor said Trump’s threats to retaliate against prosecutors and other “dangerous rhetoric” sought to have a chilling effect and to intimidate law enforcement “in the hopes that they will ignore the defendant’s transgressions because they fear that he is simply too powerful to be subjected to the same rule of law as the rest of us.”

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, who accompanied him in Florida, said he disagreed with Steinglass’ characterizations. Trump has nominated Blanche to be second-in-command at the Department of Justice.

When it was Trump’s turn to speak — a moment defendants often use to express remorse in a bid for leniency — the former president singled out prosecutors, talked about his election victory, and riffed on several other topics. He said the case was brought to destroy his reputation and lose him the election, “which obviously didn’t work.”

“The fact is I’m totally innocent. I did nothing wrong,” Trump said. “I just want to say I think it’s an embarrassment to New York.”

The president-elect mounted a furious effort to dodge the sentencing, targeting delay bids at four courts. The Supreme Court had the last say in an order late Thursday, in a 5-4 ruling sounding unpersuaded by his claim the hearing would unduly burden his presidential transition.

While the significance of Friday’s proceeding largely came down to symbolism and procedure, it cemented Trump’s status as the first and only U.S. president to be tried and convicted. Trump vowed on Truth Social later Friday to appeal his conviction.

The anonymous Manhattan jury who decided the case found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30, for which he was initially supposed to be sentenced on July 11. None of the jurors have spoken publicly about their service.

The criminal case centered on Trump’s coverup of payments to Michael Cohen that reimbursed his longtime fixer for silencing porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election. The porn actor has long claimed she had a sordid encounter with Trump in a Lake Tahoe hotel room in 2006, which he denies.

Jurors heard over the more than monthlong trial that Cohen, Trump, and tabloid publisher David Pecker devised the scheme to control what voters knew about Trump’s past in August 2015. Former Playboy model Karen McDougal and a doorman at Trump Tower also received payoffs to suppress their allegations of Trump’s sexual exploits, trial evidence showed.

In his courtroom remarks, Trump took aim at Cohen, saying, “This is a man who has got no standing. He has been disbarred on other matters unrelated. And he was allowed to talk as though he was George Washington, but he is not George Washington.“

Trump was placed under a gag order at the trial, which is expected to expire Friday, after he spread unfounded conspiracies about Merchan’s daughter online. The order he violated at least 10 times barred him from discussing trial participants, including prosecutors, court staff, and their families but not the judge or Bragg.

While he has repeatedly cast himself as a victim of political persecution, a weaponized justice system, and racism against white people by Black prosecutors, Trump’s experience of being found guilty of felonies without consequence is unique.

Facing the prospect of four years in prison on any one of the charges seven months ago, he will instead spend them in the White House.

Bragg’s case was the only one of four brought against Trump after his first term that went before a jury.

Federal prosecutors recently moved to dismiss two actions accusing him of plotting to overthrow President Biden’s win in 2020 and hoarding classified documents at his country clubs after leaving office – which could have led to steep prison sentences.

Through his second term, he will be protected from the Georgia state case concerning his alleged election subversion efforts.

In his courtroom remarks, Merchan said imposing a sentence was one of a judge’s most challenging decisions. He said the extraordinary legal protections afforded to the office of the chief executive “is a factor that overrides all others” he must respect and follow.

“I’m referring to protections that extend well beyond those afforded the average defendant who winds their way through the criminal justice system each day. No, ordinary citizens do not receive those legal protections,” Merchan said, looking at Trump.

“It was the citizenry of this nation that recently decided that you should once again receive the benefits of those protections … It is through that lens and that reality that this court must determine a lawful sentence,” the judge added, formally imposing the sentence.

“Sir, I wish you Godspeed as you assume your second term in office.”

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