The Supreme Court of the State of New York has indefinitely postponed the sentencing of the President-elect of the United States Donald Trump, in the case of payment for silence to a porn star.
Judge Juan Merchanʼs decision was published on the state court systemʼs website.
Judge Merchan allowed Trumpʼs lawyers to file a motion to dismiss the case, asking them to file all necessary documents by December 2, 2024. The prosecutorʼs office will have a week to give an answer to this — until December 9.
Initially, the meeting at which Trump was supposed to be sentenced in the case, which has been going on for several years, was supposed to take place on November 26. Merchan did not specify a new date for the final court session.
Trumpʼs partial immunity
The Supreme Court on July 1 rejected the decision of the Federal Court of Appeals, which previously ruled that Trump does not have the right to presidential immunity in the case of his involvement in the attack on January 6.
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 case of payments to a porn star
On May 30, 2024, a jury in New York found Trump guilty of all 34 counts in the case of financial fraud during payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. He faces up to four years in prison.
According to the investigation, before the 2016 election, Trump, through a lawyer, paid Stormy Daniels $130 000 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.
Trumpʼs sentence was to be declared on September 18 this year. However, his lawyers asked for the date to be rescheduled, arguing that sentencing in September could affect his election campaign. Punishing the former president in the midst of his campaign to return to the White House would amount to election interference, they said.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan agreed with this and explained that the court is impartial and apolitical. After that, the final meeting was scheduled for November 26, 2024, but it was postponed again.
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