Trump found guilty in adult star payment case, but neither jailed nor fined
#News Bureau January 10,2025
Donald Trump will be the first president to have a criminal in the White House. A US court has upheld his conviction in the case of misappropriation of payments to an adult star. He has been sentenced to ‘unconditional release’ for hiding unaccounted payments to a porn star. That is, he was sentenced but released unconditionally and neither jailed nor fined.
This means that the President-Elect has been found guilty of his charges, but he will not have to face any jail sentence or punishment because he has been elected President of the United States. Trump will take oath of the highest office in the country on January 20. The President is a post that has been given the exemption to be above the law while in office and even after that.
Donald Trump did not even attend the court hearing in person. He chose to do so virtually, as he knew very well that he would not be sent to jail.
While pronouncing the sentence, New York Judge Juan Merchan said, ‘This court has decided that the only valid punishment, which allows a guilty verdict to be entered without violating the highest office of the country, is unconditional release.’
Last week, after Merchan announced that the hearing would proceed, Trump made a last-minute attempt to stop his sentence, but his appeal was rejected by the US Supreme Court.
Earlier last month, Donald Trump got a setback from the court when the judge in the case of fraud in payment to the adult star said that Trump’s sentence should remain intact.
The judge had clearly said that Donald Trump’s conviction would not be revoked in the case of tampering with the records to hide the scandal. He rejected Trump’s argument that a recent Supreme Court decision had overturned the conviction.
Trump’s lawyers had argued that having the case hanging over him during his presidency would impede his ability to govern. He was originally scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, but Justice Juan Marchan postponed it indefinitely after Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the November 5 election.
What were the charges?
Trump was accused of falsifying business records to suppress reports of his sexual affairs. Trump was approved to be indicted by a Manhattan grand jury in March 2023.
Trump has been accused of a payment. This is a case of 2016 when he was campaigning for the first time as a presidential candidate. The investigation in this case was focused on the payment made to allegedly suppress claims of extramarital sex during the 2016 presidential election campaign. This payment was allegedly related to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Prosecutors for months investigated the money paid to Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who they feared would reveal claims of his extramarital sex with them.
However, Trump rejected the indictment and said that he had done nothing wrong. He repeatedly questioned the investigation.
When the impeachment was allowed in 2023, the former president said that this was being done as a political revenge and to prevent him from contesting the next election. Court proceedings began a year after the impeachment was allowed.
Trump had pleaded not guilty to 34 serious counts of tampering with business records. The charge centers on a $130,000 payment made by Trump’s company to Cohen. He paid that amount on behalf of Trump to Daniels a month before the election to prevent her claims of sexual relations a decade ago from becoming public.
