NYC judge denies Trump's request to stop sentencing from going forward in hush money case

Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily News on Jan 6, 2025

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NEW YORK— A Manhattan judge on Monday denied a Hail Mary motion by Donald Trump to stop his sentencing in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case from going ahead this week.

In a brief written decision, state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan kept in place Trump’s sentencing set for Friday at 9:30 a.m. after the president-elect’s lawyers asked him to “immediately vacate” the proceeding as they appeal his denials of several efforts to get the case thrown out.

Merchan wrote that the legal positions Trump included in the request were “for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.”

The shot-down request came amid a flurry of filings Trump’s lawyers brought in New York courts Monday as he was certified the winner of the 2024 election, four years to the day since the insurrection of the U.S. Capitol.

After asking Merchan to cancel the sentencing, they asked the First Department, Appellate Division appeals court to reverse his rulings from Friday and Dec. 16, which rejected Trump’s efforts to get the hush money indictment dismissed and the jury’s guilty verdict vacated. They may ask the appeals court to intervene in the sentencing following Merchan’s order late Monday.

Merchan, on Friday, flatly rejected Trump’s position that he was in any way protected as president-elect from criminal proceedings based on the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling on presidential immunity and that the will of voters should override that of the jury who found him guilty. On Dec. 16, he also found that the Supreme Court immunity decision had no bearing on Trump’s criminal case in Manhattan.

In scheduling Trump for sentencing 10 days before his inauguration, Merchan said on Friday that it would bring closure to the case and allow Trump to exercise his options to appeal his conviction, which he cannot do before he’s sentenced. Merchan said he would impose a sentence of an unconditional discharge, which means Trump will not be subjected to jail time, probation, fines or any other form of punishment. Trump’s lawyers have indicated he will appear remotely if it goes ahead.

The scheduling came as a surprise, with prosecutors previously conceding that Trump may not face justice until 2029.

In their request to Merchan to cancel the sentencing, which was made public Monday, Trump’s lawyers, who have argued the case’s existence will impact his ability to govern, said their appeals should automatically halt the proceedings from going forward. In the alternative, they said Merchan should grant the pause.

“(The) court should not continue to act while its very power to act in the first place is under appellate consideration,” Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote.

“(T)here is no legal basis to rush ahead to sentencing rather than impose a stay, other than (the Manhattan district attorney’s) preference to get this done prior to President Trump’s inauguration … so that DA Bragg can tell voters in his upcoming election that he completed the case,” they later wrote.

Prosecutors opposed the request, citing “the strong public interest in prompt prosecution and the finality of criminal proceedings.” They said there was no risk the sentencing would interfere with the duties Trump will possess come Jan. 20 and that the current schedule was a result of his repeated delay tactics before and after his election victory, writing, “He should not now be heard to complain of harm from delays he caused.”

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Merchan’s ruling late Monday. The Manhattan DA declined to comment.

Merchan’s denials on Friday set up Trump to take office as the first felon to serve as U.S. president. A jury on May 30 found him guilty of falsifying business records in 2017 relating to his reimbursement to Michael Cohen for paying off porn star Daniels in the leadup to the 2016 election.

Trial evidence showed that the payoff was one of at least three made to suppress unflattering information about his past from voters in 2016. The charges carry up to four years in prison.

Trump decried the case and officials involved in a string of Truth Social posts over the weekend, claiming, “I never falsified business records. It is a fake, made up charge by a corrupt judge who is just doing the work of the Biden/Harris Injustice Department, an attack on their political opponent, ME! He created a case where there was none.”

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