NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – A New York judge on Friday delayed Donald Trump’s sentencing in his Manhattan criminal hush money case until after the 2024 presidential election.
In a four-page decision, State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan moved sentencing in the felony case back to Nov. 26—a few weeks after Election Day on Nov. 5.
Sentencing had been scheduled for Sept. 18, about seven weeks before Election Day.
Merchan emphasized the sentencing would come “if necessary,” as he is still weighing a defense request to overturn the verdict on immunity grounds. In his order Friday, the judge delayed a decision on that until Nov. 12.
On Tuesday, a federal judge rejected Trump’s request to have the U.S. District Court in Manhattan seize the case from Merchan’s state court. Had they been successful, the former president's lawyers said they would have then sought to have the verdict overturned and the case dismissed on immunity grounds.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He faces up to four years in prison, but as a first time offender he could receive a sentence that doesn't involve imprisonment.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Trump’s case, deferred to Merchan and did not take a position on the defense’s delay request.
Trump and his lawyers were at a separate Lower Manhattan courthouse Friday to argue that a $5 million verdict finding him liable of sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996 should be overturned.
The Republican nominee for president also held a news conference from Trump Tower on Friday in which he assailed the legal cases against him as politically motivated.
“I’m running for president, and I have all these cases all of a sudden come,” he said. “And they’re fake cases.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.