Days before Trump took office, he was sentenced in New York in a hush-hush case | Donald Trump news

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Donald Trump avoids jail or fines, but the president-elect of the United States will have a criminal conviction on his record.

US President-elect Donald Trump has been sentenced to what is known as an “unconditional discharge” for hush money payments to an adult film actress, making him the first US president to be convicted of a crime.

Judge Juan Mercan made the decision on Friday, a day after the trial The US Supreme Court refused Trump’s legal team’s attempt to delay sentencing ahead of the Republican leader’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

An “unconditional discharge” means Trump’s conviction will appear on his permanent record, but he faces no jail time, fines or probation — leaving him unimpeded from entering the White House.

Previously, Trump was the acting president from 2017 to 2021 found guilty at the end of May Falsification of 34 case documents related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, incl.

The US president-elect has denied any wrongdoing and said he plans to appeal his conviction.

Speaking virtually at the court hearing on Friday, Trump said his criminal trial and prosecution had been a “horrific experience” and insisted he had committed no crime.

“It was a political witch hunt,” he said before the judge handed down his decision. “It was done to damage my reputation so that I would lose the election and obviously it didn’t work.”

Prosecutors New York case claimed that the hush money payments were intended to cover up allegations of a potentially damaging sexual relationship with Daniels.

Trump, who does not plead guilty, has denied the existence of such a relationship.

His lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court stay of judgment “To prevent serious injustice and damage to the institution of the Presidency and the operation of the federal government.”

They argued that a high court ruling last year granting presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution meant that some evidence should not have been introduced in the case.

But a majority of Supreme Court justices ruled Thursday that “alleged evidentiary violations” in Trump’s state court case “can be resolved on appeal in the usual manner.”

They also said that the “burden that the sentence would place on Trump’s obligations” is “relatively insignificant in light of the trial court’s intent to impose a sentence of “unconditional release” after a brief virtual hearing.”

Under New York’s criminal code, a court may sentence a defendant to unconditional release if “it is satisfied that no purpose would be served by imposing any conditions on the defendant’s release.”