The judge of the Supreme Court of the state of New York Juan Merchan postponed the sentencing of former US President Donald Trump in the case of payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels from July 11 to September 18.
This is reported by NBC News.
Trump will be sentenced in this case less than two months before the presidential election and after he is officially nominated as a presidential candidate by the National Convention of the Republican Party, which starts on July 15.
Trumpʼs lawyers asked to delay sentencing. They need more time to study how the process might be affected by the US Supreme Courtʼs partial immunity for Trump from prosecution in the January 2021 storming of the Capitol.
Trumpʼs partial immunity
On July 1, the Supreme Court rejected a decision by the Federal Court of Appeals, which had previously ruled that Trump was not entitled to presidential immunity in the case of his involvement in the January 6 assault.
Presidents of the United States do have immunity for their official actions, but this does not extend to their personal actions. The courts will now have to determine what Trumpʼs actions were official and what were not.
The Supreme Court decision will delay this and other cases until the November 2024 US presidential election.
The case of payments to a porn star
On May 30, a jury in New York found Trump guilty of all 34 charges in the case of financial fraud during payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. Now he faces up to four years in prison.
According to the investigation, before the 2016 election, Trump paid Stormy Daniels $130 000 through a lawyer to keep quiet about having sex with him. The payment was not illegal, but it was framed as Trumpʼs payment to a lawyer for legal services. In New York State, this is considered falsification of reporting.
In 2018, Trumpʼs lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison in the case of forgery. Trump, who held the post of president at the time, was not charged.
In addition to this case, three more were filed against the ex-president of the United States — about the conspiracy to cancel the election results and Trumpʼs role in storming the Capitol, about his storage of secret documents and about his alleged attempt to change the results of the presidential election in the state of Georgia in 2020.