The U.S President-elect, Donald Trump, on Monday, urged a Manhattan court to delay his sentencing scheduled for January 10, in his criminal conviction.
Trump was convicted in May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The charges stemmed from a $130,000 payment made through his former personal lawyer in 2016 to silence porn actor Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier—a claim he consistently denied.
Trump’s sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11, 2024, but was postponed twice at the request of his lawyers.
It was eventually rescheduled to a date in late November 2024 after the presidential election, which Trump eventually won, prompting the court to put everything on hold to consider what to do.
In last week’s ruling, the presiding judge, Juan M. Merchan, fixed his sentencing for January 10, just 10 days before Trump’s inauguration, rejecting the former president’s arguments that his election victory should mark an end to the case.
Justice Merchan, however, indicated that he might lean towards a sentence that would amount to just closing the case without any real punishment. He said Trump could attend the January 10 proceeding remotely due to his transition duties.
Trump’s lawyers informed the court that they are appealing its recent rulings upholding the jury’s guilty verdict and argued that the judge should halt the case in the meantime.
“The Court should vacate the sentencing hearing scheduled for January 10, 2025, and suspend all further deadlines in the case until President Trump’s immunity appeals are fully and finally resolved, which should result in a dismissal of this case, which should have never been brought in the first place,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in the new filing, which was made public on Monday.
“By virtue of President Trump’s filing of appellate proceedings raising his claims of Presidential immunity, all proceedings in this Court are automatically stayed by operation of federal constitutional law,” they added.