NEW YORK (AP) — History happened just as everyone was about to leave.
Judge Juan M. Merchan had already summoned Donald Trump, his legal team and prosecutors to the courtroom where the former president has been on trial since mid-April. The judge said he planned to send the jury home in a few minutes – at 4:30 p.m. – so that deliberations would resume the next morning.
Trump looked cheerful and had animated conversations with his lawyers. A bell that rang in the courtroom when the jury had something to say had been silent all day.
In the end, it wasn’t the bell that signaled something was wrong, but the jingle of a bailiff’s keys – a ring full of them that jingled as Major Michael McKee rushed past the judge’s bench and out the door into a private hallway.
Then the judge was unexpectedly back on the bench. There was another note from the jury, signed at 4:20 p.m. Merchan read it aloud.
“We, the jury, have reached a verdict,” it said, asking for an additional 30 minutes to complete the verdict form.
The ‘hurry up and wait’ rhythm of the deliberations gave way to anticipatory tension.
“I’m sure you’ll hear it from the sergeant, the major and everyone else, but please don’t let there be any outbursts of any kind when we reach a verdict,” Merchan warned everyone in the courtroom. “I’ll be back out in a few minutes.”
As the minutes passed, attorney Todd Blanche whispered to Trump, who was stone-faced and crossed his arms over his chest. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case, entered the courtroom and sat in the gallery with assistants.
The courtroom was packed with people, including dozens of reporters, cartoonists, citizens and Trump’s son Eric. Bragg staffers crammed into the back row of the audience. Court staff lined the wall next to the judge’s bench. There were only two unclaimed seats, occupied by a Van Gogh sunflower seat cushion and a newspaper that no one had returned to collect.
The judge returned to court just before 5 p.m. He reread the ominous note and ordered court officials to bring the jury into the courtroom.
The six alternate jurors, who reviewed the testimony but were not part of the deliberations, were brought into the courtroom and seated in the front row of the audience.
The twelve jurors followed suit. Most looked straight ahead as they walked past Trump.
About a dozen court officials filled the room.
Then the moment came. It was quiet in the courtroom.
“What do you say about the first count of the indictment, which charges Donald J. Trump with falsifying business records in the first degree?” a court official asked. “Guilty,” the foreman, whose name has not been released publicly, said in a firm voice.
The same answer, “guilty,” came again and again. Trump was convicted of all 34 counts of falsifying records at his company as part of a broad scheme to cover up payments to a porn actor during the 2016 election.
As the verdict was read and dozens of reporters sent the news to the editors, the wireless Internet connection in the courtroom suddenly became slow.
Monitors in another courtroom where more reporters were watching the proceedings via closed-circuit television were turned off as the verdict was read so that members of the media and public who were there to observe did not see Trump’s face as the first “guilty” could see. was read, but a muffled sigh was heard.
The video feed resumed after the final attack was read aloud, with Trump sitting with an expressionless expression.
Trump began to slowly look around the room and, still expressionless, watched the jurors confirm that they had found him guilty on all counts.
Blanche rested his face in his hands and frowned.
Merchan thanked the jury for its work, something that is customary at the end of any trial.
“You were engaged in a very stressful and difficult task,” he said, adding that the weeks of the trial were “a long time when you were away from your job, your family and all your responsibilities.”
The jury was subsequently excused. Trump stood as jurors filtered out of the courtroom, appearing to look at them one by one as they passed in front of him.
In the hallway outside the courtroom on the 15th floor, cheers rang out from the street below, where a small group of Trump supporters and opponents had gathered.
As the former president and presumptive Republican nominee left the courtroom, Eric Trump put a hand on his back.
After watching his mother as the verdict came, Donald Trump turned to the news cameras waiting for him in the hallway.
“I am a very innocent man,” he said, before vowing to continue fighting a case he has repeatedly called “a disgrace.”
“We will fight to the end and we will win,” he said.
His sentencing is scheduled for July 11, likely in the same courtroom where history was made Thursday.
