By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. President-elect Donald Trump asked a New York judge on Monday to delay his Jan. 10 sentencing on his criminal conviction on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.
Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing that they plan to appeal Justice Juan Merchan’s decisions denying Trump’s bids to dismiss the case due to presidential immunity and the demands of the presidential transition period.
The lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, asked Merchan to hold off on sentencing Trump while the appeal played out. Any delay would make it unlikely that Trump would be sentenced before his Jan. 20 inauguration.
Merchan set the sentencing date on Friday, but signaled that Trump would be unlikely to face jail or other legal consequences. The judge said Trump, 78, may appear at his sentencing either in person or virtually.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about a sexual encounter she said she had with Trump, who denies it.
After a six-week trial in state criminal court in Manhattan, a jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to mask the payment prior to the 2016 election.
Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that Trump’s victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election showed that the American people wanted “an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system.”
Trump, a Republican, has long argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, brought the case to harm his re-election campaign. Bragg has said that his office routinely brings felony falsification of business records charges.
A spokesperson for Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s bid for a sentencing delay.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen; Editing by Doina Chiacu, Chizu Nomiyama and Mark Porter)
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