Ten Days to his inauguration for a second four-year term, President-elect Donald Trump was, Friday, sentenced to an “unconditional discharge” in the New York hush money case.
The sentencing which held following the Supreme Court’s refusal, Thursday, to stop the exercise, makes him the first president to have been sentenced for a criminal conviction once he assumes office on January 20, 2025.
The Supreme Court decided 5-4 to reject Trump’s request to drop the proceeding.
The unconditional discharge, which state Judge Juan Merchan said he was likely to impose, allows Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to stand with no further penalties, such as jail time, the NBC News reported.
Trump, who attended the sentencing virtually from Florida, was reported to have said that he thought it was a “fair decision” but gave hint of possible appeals, such as of the verdict.
Trump had been convicted in May, 2024, of falsifying records related to hush money that his then-attorney Michael Cohen paid adult film star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels testified that she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he has denied.
For the first time since the trial began, New York Judge Juan Merchan allowed media organizations to record the audio from inside the courtroom as he sentenced Trump to an “unconditional discharge” in the hush money case in which he was found guilty by a jury last year of 34 counts of falsifying business records.
