The judge in former President Donald Trump's case over payments to a porn actress in exchange for her silence refused to delay the Jan. 10 sentencing date he had set last week.
US President-elect Donald Trump on Monday lost a bid to postpone his scheduled sentencing on Friday over his criminal conviction on charges stemming from paying money to a porn star in exchange for her silence.
Citing both presidential immunity and the demands of Trump's impending inauguration on Jan. 20, his lawyers said Monday morning that Judge Juan Merchan's intention not to penalize Trump was “immaterial.”
“Violations of presidential immunity cannot be ignored in favor of a hasty sentencing before the inauguration,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing.
In a written ruling issued later Monday, Merchan said Trump's motion was mostly “a rehash of arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.” The judge refused to delay Trump's sentencing from Jan. 10, a date he had set last week.
In setting a date for Trump's sentencing hearing on Friday, the judge signaled last week that he was not inclined to send him to prison or other legal consequences. He also added that the 78-year-old Republican can appear at his sentencing in person or virtually.
In their filing Monday, Trump's lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, asked Merchan to delay Trump's sentencing while appeals are resolved. Any delay would make it unlikely that Trump would be sentenced before his inauguration on January 20.
Trump, a Republican, has long maintained that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, brought the case to hurt his re-election campaign. Bragg has said his office consistently brings charges of falsifying business records, the charge Trump faced in the case.
Prosecutors in Bragg's office had urged Merchan to reject Trump's attempt to delay sentencing.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denies it.
After Trump won re-election, his lawyers argued that having the case pending on him while he was president would hamper his ability to govern. Merchan rejected that proposal, writing that overturning the jury's verdict would be an affront to the rule of law.