US President-elect Trump to be sentenced for hush money conviction

Former US President Donald Trump sits at the defendant's table inside the courthouse as the jury is scheduled to continue deliberations for his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, 2024, in New York City. [AFP]

Donald Trump will be sentenced Friday for covering up hush money payments to a porn star despite the US President-elect's last-ditch efforts to frustrate a process that would make him the first felon in the White House.

The judge has indicated, however, that Trump will not face prison -- even though the 34 counts of falsifying business records on which he was convicted in May 2024 carry potential prison time. It is instead anticipated that he will receive the mildest criminal sanction available, an unconditional discharge -- a relatively uncommon measure.

Sentencing, which Trump is expected to attend virtually, will happen in the scruffy Manhattan courtroom that was the scene of the trial's high drama, legal wrangling and vitriolic personal attacks by the divisive Republican.

The trial saw Trump forced to look on as a string of witnesses testified that he had fraudulently covered up illicit payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in an effort to stop her disclosing their tryst ahead of the 2016 presidential election, which he ultimately won.

Daniels gave toe-curling testimony that included details about her sexual encounter with Trump -- which he has always denied -- as well as his flirting and interest in the adult film industry.

The judge intervened to stop more explicit testimony.

Trump had made an eleventh-hour plea for a suspension of the criminal proceedings to the nation's highest court after a New York State appeals court dismissed his effort to have the hearing delayed, and the state's top court declined to act on the request.

But the Supreme Court ruled that the sentencing could proceed.

ecutors opposed the effort to stave off sentencing, 10 days before Trump is due to be sworn in for a second term, arguing it was wrong for the apex court to hear the case when the mogul still had avenues of appeal to pursue in New York.

"This Court lacks jurisdiction over a state court's management of an ongoing criminal trial when defendant has not exhausted his state-law remedies," the prosecution told the Supreme Court Thursday.

His lawyers have used several legal maneuvers in an effort to fend off the sentencing, which the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, has already indicated in a filing will not result in jail time.

Instead, experts expect Trump will receive an unconditional discharge, a measure without any sanctions or restriction that nonetheless upholds the jury's guilty verdict -- and Trump's infamy as the first former president to be convicted of a felony.

The 78-year-old Trump had potentially faced up to four years in prison.

"He's sticking his middle finger at the judge, the jury, the system of justice, and laughing," said Pace University law professor and former prosecutor Bennett Gershman.

Trump's counsel had argued sentencing should be postponed while the Republican appeals his conviction, but New York state Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer rejected that on Tuesday.

Trump's lawyers additionally claimed the immunity from prosecution granted to a US president should be extended to a president-elect -- Gesmer also brushed those arguments aside.

His attorneys had further sought to have the case dismissed based on the Supreme Court's landmark ruling last year, which stated former US presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office.

Trump was certified as the winner of the 2024 presidential election on Monday, four years after his supporters rioted at the US Capitol as he sought to overturn his 2020 defeat.