NEW YORK — A lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday failed to convince a New York appeals court to stop his sentencing from going ahead this week as the president-elect fired off a barrage of frenzied last-ditch attempts to close the book on his criminal hush money case before he takes office.

Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer shot down Trump’s emergency request for an interim “stay,” or pause, of his sentencing after briefly hearing from his attorney, Todd Blanche, and the Manhattan district attorney’s chief of appeals, Steven Wu.

During the hearing, Gesmer appeared skeptical of Blanche’s legal positions, including that Trump was shielded by presidential immunity as president-elect.

“Do you have any support for a notion that presidential immunity extends to presidents-elect?” Gesmer asked.

“There has never been a case like this before, so no,” Blanche said.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump asked the mid-level appeals court to throw out the case. The filing to the First Department, Appellate Division appeals court came a day after Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied a defense request to halt Trump’s sentencing from going forward Friday as Trump appeals various decisions upholding the guilty verdicts against him. Merchan unexpectedly scheduled the proceeding in a decision last week.

Trump’s Tuesday appeals court filing says it seeks “to redress the serious and continuing infringement on his Presidential immunity from criminal process that he holds as the 45th and soon-to-be 47th President of the United States of America.”

“Justice Merchan is without authority under the law to proceed to sentencing while President Trump exercises his federal constitutional right to challenge these rulings,” Blanche and Emil Bove wrote, demanding the verdict be vacated and the charges dismissed.

“Any criminal sentence, or even the distraction of ongoing criminal proceedings — including appeals necessary to vindicate the Presidential immunity doctrine and President Trump’s individual constitutional rights — threatens to disrupt the enormously burdensome task of undergoing a Presidential transition,” they later wrote.

A spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case, did not immediately comment.

In his Friday decision that announced the sentencing, Merchan said he did not plan to impose a jail term or any other form of punishment and that Trump could appear by video. He decided Trump, as president-elect, was not shielded by the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling that granted the president sweeping protections from criminal actions and that the case shouldn’t be tossed in light of Trump winning the presidential election.

In December, the judge found that the Supreme Court ruling didn’t apply to evidence in the case.

The court filings come as Trump gears up for his inauguration on Jan. 20, set to become the first felon to serve as U.S. president. The Manhattan case was the only one of four brought against him after his first term that made it before a jury, and as the charges are state-level, he cannot pardon himself.

A jury of 12 Manhattan residents on May 30 found Trump, 78, guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from a scheme to hide embarrassing details about his past from the electorate in 2016.

The case centered on payments he made to Michael Cohen after his first presidential term began, which reimbursed his longtime former fixer for paying off porn star Stormy Daniels in the leadup to the election. Trial evidence showed Daniels was one of three hush money recipients.

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