Can Trump’s Hush-Money Case Judge Still Send Him to Jail?
The president-elect’s sentencing is currently scheduled for later this month.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Donald Trump has probably avoided seeing inside of a jail cell thanks to his successful bid for re-election.
The president-elect was scheduled to be sentenced November 26 after a New York jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal involving former adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The 34 felony counts carried a possible sentence of up to four years in prison, and under normal circumstances, Trump would face a very real possibility of jail time, according to a New York Times analysis of similar cases.
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Most defendants who are convicted but don’t receive jail time agree to a plea bargain. Trump, on the other hand, was such an openly hostile defendant he was sanctioned by the court. Convicted felons are usually housed on Rikers Island.
But Trump’s lawyers successfully filed for a series of delays in the case, and the judge agreed to hold off on sentencing until after Election Day. Team Trump has also argued the case should be dismissed altogether based on presidential immunity, or moved to federal court.
Now that Trump has beaten Kamala Harris, it’s not even clear if prosecutors will seek jail time against an incoming president. Nobody has ever had to figure out Secret Service protection at Rikers before.
But if prosecutors do ask for a tough sentence, Trump’s lawyers will probably request an indefinite sentencing delay—and they’re likely to get it, some experts say.
Constitutional questions about whether a state judge can sentence a president-elect could tie up the case for years, and at a very minimum Trump’s lawyers will argue he can’t be sentenced until after he finishes his second presidential term, experts told CNN.
That would keep him a free man until at least January 2029. By then he will be 82 years old and can ask for leniency based on his age and lack of a prior criminal record.
Just a kindly old man with no prior convictions, seeking to spend his final days putting around the golf course he so loves.
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