WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A judge ruled on Monday that Donald Trump’s conviction for falsifying data to cover up a sex scandal should stand, rejecting the U.S. president-elect’s argument that a recent Supreme Court ruling would annul the verdict, the New York Times reported.
Trump’s lawyers argued that having the case hanging over him during his presidency would hamper his ability to govern. His sentencing was originally scheduled for Nov. 26, but Judge Juan Merchan postponed that indefinitely after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election.
Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case, said there were measures that were not the “extreme remedy” to overturn the jury’s verdict and that would address Trump’s concerns about the fact that he would be distracted by a criminal case during his term as president.
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The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she said she had had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.
A Manhattan jury found Trump guilty in May of 34 counts of falsifying company records to cover up the payment. It was the first time that a US president – ​​former or sitting – was convicted or charged with a criminal offense.
Trump has pleaded not guilty, calling the case an attempt by Bragg, a Democrat, to damage his 2024 campaign.
(Reporting by Eric Beech and Luc Cohen, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Matthew Lewis)
