(The Center Square) – A judge is expected to decide next week if President-elect Donald Trump’s felony conviction in the New York hush money case will stand ahead of a possible sentencing hearing on Nov. 26.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan – who had already delayed Trump’s sentencing for several months ahead of the election – will decide Tuesday if the conviction stands after the U.S. Supreme Court’s immunity decision in July.
Trump’s defense team had previously asked Merchan to dismiss the case after the high court’s decision.
Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Merchan that the ruling from the nation’s highest court is unrelated to Trump’s conviction on charges that he illegally paid hush money to keep women quiet about alleged sexual encounters and then covered up the payments as legal expenses during his 2016 campaign.
The judge said that if Trump’s dismissal motion fails, “the law requires the imposition of sentence following a guilty verdict without unreasonable delay.”
That sentencing hearing is set for 10 a.m. Nov. 26, but won’t be needed if the judge tosses the case.
In late May, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on all counts in his hush money case. Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records for disguising hush money payments to an adult film actress as legal costs ahead of the 2016 election. Under New York state law, falsifying business records in the first degree is a Class E felony with a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
In July, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents and former presidents have absolute immunity for actions related to core constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for official actions. The ruling said the president has no immunity for unofficial conduct.
Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the election both in the popular vote and in the Electoral College, handily winning what pollsters had predicted would be a tight race. Trump had 72,993,733 votes as of Thursday compared to 68,351,712 votes for Harris, with a few milion votes still to be counted, mostly in Blue states. Trump secured 312 Electoral College votes compared to 226 for Harris.
U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors from Jack Smith’s office could close out their twin prosecutions of Trump before Trump returns to the White House in January under department policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted, NBC News reported.
Trump also faces election interference charges in Georgia.
