By Luc Cohen and Mike Spector
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday formally notified a New York state court of Trump’s intent to appeal his criminal conviction on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.
In the notice, Trump’s lawyers said they would appeal both the jury’s May 30, 2024, guilty verdict and Justice Juan Merchan’s Jan. 10, 2025, sentence of unconditional discharge to a mid-level state appeals court.
The sentence, imposed just days before Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration to a second White House term, meant he will face no jail time or other legal punishment, but that a former judgment of guilt would be placed on his record.
Trump, the first-ever sitting or former U.S. president to be convicted of a crime, has long said he planned to appeal. After filing the formal notice, his lawyers now have six months to submit a brief laying out their arguments in greater detail.
The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment Trump’s former personal lawyer made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had some years earlier with Trump, which he denies.
Trump, a Republican businessman-turned-politician, was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. Trump argued that the case, brought by Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, was an effort to harm his 2024 presidential election campaign.
“The misuse of the criminal law by the Manhattan DA to target President Trump sets a dangerous precedent, and we look forward to the case being dismissed on appeal,” Robert Giuffra, a lawyer who will be handling Trump’s appeal, said in a statement.
A spokesperson for Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bragg has said his office routinely brings felony falsification of business records cases.
Giuffra, a partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, had previously been under consideration for attorney general in Trump’s administration, people familiar with the discussions told Reuters in November.
Trump has named the lawyers who represented him at the hush money trial, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, to senior Justice Department posts.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Mike Spector in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler)
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