New York’s top court has rejected an attempt by United States President-elect Donald Trump to delay sentencing for his criminal conviction last year over hush-money payments made to an adult film actress.
A New York Court of Appeals judge issued a brief order on Thursday declining to grant a hearing to Trump’s legal team.
That leaves the US Supreme Court as likely the president-elect’s last option to prevent a sentencing hearing from taking place as scheduled on Friday, just 10 days before Trump is set to take office on January 20.
The Republican, who previously served as president from 2017 to 2021, was found guilty in late May on 34 counts of falsifying business documents related to hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels, an adult film performer.
Prosecutors argued that the payments, made in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election, aimed to conceal allegations of a sexual relationship with Daniels that could have been politically damaging. Trump eventually won that race.
But he has denied any such relationship took place and had pleaded not guilty in the case. In May, he became the first US president ever convicted of a crime.
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He has continued to reject any wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a political “witch hunt”.
Earlier this week, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court for an immediate stay of the sentencing “to prevent grave injustice and harm to the institution of the Presidency and the operations of the federal government”.
They have argued that a ruling last year by the top court that grants presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution means that some of the evidence should not have been presented in the case.
The lawyers also have pushed for Trump’s conviction to be thrown out.
Manhattan prosecutors opposed Trump’s bid for a stay in a filing to the Supreme Court on Thursday morning.
“Defendant now asks this court to take the extraordinary step of intervening in a pending state criminal trial to prevent the scheduled sentencing from taking place – before final judgment has been entered by the trial court, and before any direct appellate review of defendant’s conviction. There is no basis for such intervention,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office wrote.
The trial judge in the case, Justice Juan Merchan, said last week he was not inclined to sentence the president-elect to prison and would likely grant him unconditional discharge.
This would place a guilty judgement on Trump’s record, but would not impose custody, a fine or probation.
